The Resistance
by Summersfan
Summary: Mal and River find a group of resistance fighters. Each has their own reasons for wanting to sign right up, to everybody's chagrin....
1. Chapter 1

The Resistance

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

1.

Malcolm Reynolds was spoiling for a fight.

Not just any fight, mind you. No Unification Day brawl in a pub would satisfy this itch. He longed to step back into a war that was long over and really put it to the powers that were currently making his life hell.

So hearing the news that there was a Resistance, and that they had just landed a major blow against the trade lines bringing supplies to the Alliance outskirts… it filled his often empty heart with a joy he didn't often get to feel.

So he smiled, and leaned back in the pilot's seat. "What do you think of that, li'l Albatross?" he asked.

River, sitting crosslegged on the floor, turned her neck so that her head was sideways to his, gazing at the flashing lights on the tiny, dirty monitor. "It's very nice. Of course, people died."

It was a more lucid thought than he had expected on the subject, and he gave her a mocking glare. "I do believe there'll be some business for us around there, about now."

"Because you want to help? Or hurt?" she asked sadly.

It was a probing question, and he discounted it out of hand. "Anyways, with the shipments messed up, there'll be loads of cash changing hands for goods not always obtained in a seemly way. That means we ought to be there."

"There'll be lots of men there, thinking they can find answers. Maybe if they look too hard at us they'll find all the wrong ones," she whispered.

"We're safe enough here, with our resident nasties," replied Mal.

2.

If there was one thing Jayne hated, it was bright-eyed perky little devil women who knew big words and made him feel dumb. And could take him down with one hand any day of the week.

If there was another, it was a smug captain who thought he had a plan.

He eyed the two of them for a full minute. "We goin to New Bellasarus?" he asked them, when he couldn't take it anymore.

River nodded. "Cap'n has a plan," she sing-songed. "We're going."

He sighed. "I'll get my guns ready."

Truth be told, he was glad they were going back to work. Glad they were getting over this dry run. After Wash died the whole crew was all turned around backwards. Zoe was a strong woman—it wasn't right to see her hurting so bad.

3.

It's in a tiny, crowded bar that Mal gets his first glimpse of what might be some kind of Resistance. They came here because the word is that if you want shady work that might hurt the Alliance, it's the place to be. (and you have to be wearing a mighty brown coat just to learn that much) He's just settled into a friendly game of darts, punctuated with drinking, while Jayne tries to keep River out of trouble, when the room goes quiet.

They'd come here for a taste of what's here, and hopefully for work. Now it seems they'll get information.

Everybody steps warily away from the man who comes in the door. He's small, scrawnier than Mal, with a look about him that Mal hasn't seen in a long time. Some soldiers got that look around them after a while, the look of a man who loves to kill, and doesn't care who knows it.

River gasps when he comes in, then restrains herself, hands over her mouth. Mal didn't need her to confirm that this is a nasty character, but it certainly makes it more urgent. Jayne grabs her, holding on tight. He remembers Maidenhead, and isn't eager for any repeats.

The man walks up to the bar and tosses down some money. "Keep them coming," he says, and his voice is a mesh of accents, low, throaty, and dangerous.

His face is a scowl. His hair… has been all shaved off, leaving a brownish stubble that is somehow even more dangerous.

He's wearing all black, a dusty black leather coat and a six-shooter on each hip. Showy pieces that show obvious wear. They practically have dust on them.

Mal approaches cautiously. Not a time to start a conversation, he can see that. He settles down, purchases his own drink silently.

The stranger takes a long drink, then looks around coldly. Calculatingly. His eyes settle on River for a second, and there's a flash of something in them when she looks away, afraid. His eyes linger on her far too long.

Mal nearly hits him, there and then. The kind of person who feels something like that in the way a little girl looks away… that's no kind of man.

His face must have changed, because the stranger glances to him next, examining him with cold blue eyes. "Well, a lot of new faces here. You looking for trouble, tosser?"

There's a hint of Badger in the voice, but even more of Jayne, somehow. Brashness for the sake of it. Anger and danger.

Mal smiles, and for a second he's worried this will go to violence, and way too soon. But the other man doesn't hit him, just takes another drink. "Looking for work. We have a transport out for hire—"

The man turns away before Mal is done. "Sell your wares somewhere else," he says, leaning over the bar. "Another."

Mal's got a slow-burning rage between his ears then. He doesn't like being treated like this.

Then trouble walks into the bar. Two rough and tumble men, long beards, and shotguns in hand. "Alright, Blood, put them up!" yells one of them, raising his weapon.

Mal is ducking and reaching for his a gun a second before he remembers it's not his fight. The black-clad stranger sighs, reaching for the sky. "Okay, I'll come quietly," he says, and even Mal can hear the lie in the words.

"Ain't here for you," growls one. "Reynolds, step back from the bar."

Mal knows what's happening in a quick heartbeat. These men aren't Alliance, or they'd want Blood, who may or may not be connected to the Resistance. They aren't any kind of law either. That means they work for somebody like Badger. Or _Niska._ Or even worse than that.

He glances to River, thinking of the bad men after her.

Blood follows his line of sight, swears, and produces a knife in each hand, out of his sleeves, throwing them as quick as can be. Then he grabs Mal, and with a wiry strength Mal didn't even realize was there, hurls him over the bar, to safety, and heads after his knives.

Shots ring out, but Mal's over the counter and his bell's been rung. He tries to shake clear, but Jayne and River have arrived, Jayne with a gun in hand already, ready to rescue the captain.

And then Blood is done with the poor fools who had walked into the place with violence on their mind, and is coming back to the bar. "Get up, get out, get gone!" he yells at them. "It's a big 'Verse. No call for you to come anywhere close to me."

River swings around and punches him in the face, already freaked out enough by him. He tumbles backwards, head over heels. Jayne presents the whole bar with his 'go ahead, make something of it' face, keeping his gun ready to hand.

Mal's not sure what's going on here. Blood threw him over the bar—was he trying to protect Mal? It all seems so odd now that he can't quite work it all out.

And the room is spinning.

Blood is up and advancing, and while he doesn't have the knives out yet, there's blood in his eyes. "Come on, girly, take another shot," he taunts, his voice filled with rage. She takes another swing, but this one he ducks—right into her outraised knee as she spins around, graceful as a dancer.

He catches it, though, tossing her away, into the wall.

Jayne is fascinated, staring. He rather enjoys seeing her get tossed around, anyway—payback for manhandling him, perhaps. Or payback for all the fear she creates in him. Anyway, he isn't going to interfere.

Mal draws his gun, quick as he can, pointing it at Blood. "Don't you touch her," he says, and even if his voice is hoarse, he thinks the threat is pretty clear and immediate.

Blood purses his lips, a smirk playing around the edges of his lips. "Now ain't that interesting."

Mal's hand is shaking, but he knows he can make the shot. Once the gun is out and they're in his eyes, he can make the shot. And he can kill em. There's just no other possible outcome.

But there's no fear, and that's when he knows for sure he's dealing with a real hard case. It's a shame, really, because the kid has moves, and he looks young—a whole life ahead of him. But Mal can't leave this guy behind, it's clear.

So he goes to take the shot.

The man moves like lightning, rolling before the trigger is even squeezed. Mal corrects desperately, but the man is on him, grabbing the gun out of his hand. It discharges, but once, and harmlessly.

River's moving again, slamming a hand into his head. But Blood rolls with that, too, then punches her, and then Jayne, for good measure.

Jayne seems surprised. He'd stayed out of the fight till now, stayed docile. Now, staggering down to the ground, he seems ready to make something of it.

The doors swing open once more, and now people are rushing the windows.

It's a group of fighters that come in, guns out. A short man leads them, short and squat, with automatic weapons in both hands. His coat drags the floor.

Behind him in a woman, and she's got a knife in hand. Behind her… calling that thing a person seems like blasphemy. That thing is tall, and wide, and hairy, and bristling with attitude.

Jayne rolls down behind the bar, getting his gun up, but Blood is already recovered enough to see what's happening, and he yells. "Weapons down, people!"

Then he kicks River's right leg out from under her. She stumbles, and he pushes Mal back a step, keeping Mal's gun to hand. "All right, we're done here," he says, tossing the gun down. "You folks go on back where you came from; you have no part of this."

But Mal isn't even looking at him any more. He's staring back at the group of rag-tags that came in the door. "Brian?" he says, just a bit too hoarse.

The hairy mountain frowns at him. "Malcolm Reynolds?" He let out a musical curse in Chinese that quite adequately expressed what Mal was suddenly feeling. "That's _Reynolds_," he says, and it's like a curse.

Blood is halfway out the door, but he stops. Looks back. "I don't care what kind of Big Damn Hero he is," he spits out. "He and his are no part of this." He eyes River again, but this time there's too much there, and Mal sees it.

_He knows._

River gasps, and even with blood running in a trickle from her nose she manages to look both scared and like she's going to kill him.

Blood sneers. "Oh, yes, pet, run for your life. Secret's out. Heard about Miranda, big heroic action, changed things, yadda yadda. Brian, where's my horses?"

"End of the street," said the big man, eyes still locked with Mal. "Go on ahead; I have to talk to him."

Blood curses roundly. "I think not. You come with me now, or you can get left here. Brian! Yoko, tell him."

The girl shakes her head. "We all know about Malcolm Reynolds. We're staying here, Blood. Get over it. You can go cry to the big man if you don't like it."

Blood bears down on his jaw, and hard. "We're on a schedule," he says, and his voice is too tight. "I don't have time for another lost soul in this 'verse." And if his line is a little half-baked, their reactions aren't. They hesitate, weighing it.

"Call the big man," says his other thug, the short man.

Blood's face goes blank; drawn. Pale. Chalky. He's a heavy; not in charge. Mal files that away for later use.

"Fine," grinds Blood, glaring back at River. "Bring them along for the ride, huh? In the cart."

Mal could fight it, but he's staring at the mountain man. Brian. Never did have a proper last name. They called him Smith, for lack of one. He was a good soldier. Fortunately, he'd never been in Serenity Valley. Quiet, loyal, and very useful in a fight. Sneaky.

Hell, even Zoe liked him.

Brian smiles tentatively. "Sergeant, we got a cart… I promise it's all on the up and up."

"What about supplies?" asks the short man.

Blood snorts. "If we're gonna do this, we don't have time. Let's move!"

4.

River wasn't very scared, not once they got clear of the violence. Not while Blood was in the other room in the tiny roadhouse, sending out a wave. Asking permission.

He wasn't as bad as a Reaver, even up close. But that gnawing in her brain, the way he actually thinks of drinking other people's blood, the constant flow of _violence_ in him… it drains and exhausts her.

And he knows. When he looks at her those clear blue eyes see right through her. He's not Resistance like Mal thinks. He's a fighter, a scrapper. He does it for the violence.

Or does he? There's other bits in there. Complicated bits that make her think too hard about him.

The big man continued prowling around the outside, keeping watch. That one was easy to read. Loyal. Fighting a war against the Alliance. He and Mal exchanged a few words, but he doesn't have a lot to spare.

Still, River wasn't very scared.

The woman was watching them, but she wasn't interfering. She was also a Browncoat, and it was pretty clear that this was a full-fledged Resistance. Exactly what Mal was looking for.

But it doesn't take a Reader to see he's not happy. Pacing back and forth, muttering under his breath.

It's Blood that put him on edge, of course. Blood wasn't what Mal expected. Blood was too dangerous, too violent.

Jayne is looking a little surly as well. He got hit by Blood, and now he's biding his time, waiting for a chance to repay the favor.

River was already starting to doubt he could do much against 'Blood.' What she had picked up suggested the pirate could carry himself well. That he had taken several blows she had put killing force behind and returned them—well, there were few who could do that.

His strength and speed were too good. What kind of training could he have?

Her muddled monologue was cut off by Mal's stomping, and she looked at him in confusion for a second. He was glaring at the short man, who was not a Browncoat, and for a second River touched that mind.

It was closed down, tightly, but around the edges was a loyalty that wasn't to Blood, which made River happy.

"He almost done?" asked Mal, and the question was as biting as any curse.

The short man shrugged. "Sometimes they talk. Won't be long."

As if on cue, Blood burst out from the back room. His face was dark now, full of emotion. "Malcolm Reynolds," he said, pointing.

Mal folded his arms carefully. They hadn't called Zoe, which meant she and Simon would be looking for them very soon. That was his safety net, and they hadn't left it yet. Which meant big trouble could soon be coming.

That made River smile a little bit.

Blood sighed loudly. "It has been called to my attention that you're one of the very few survivors of Serenity Valley, and that you were sort of moved up to Captain at that time. Captain Reynolds, right?"

Mal nodded tightly. "Seems you have the advantage of knowing my name."

Blood shook his head. "Blood. William T. Least, that's what it says on my travel papers." He smirked at some internal joke, but didn't bother to clarify. "These ragtags are my boys. Seems you know a bit about some of them, and the colossal joke we're playing on this 'Verse."

Mal twitched. "I think I see what you mean," he said, oh so carefully.

Blood smiled. "Right. I plan to cut up a few Alliance boys—they have a battle Blade, one of the big ships, not too far from here, and we're gonna blow it to kingdom come, put a hole in them they won't soon forget. If you want a part of that…" He looked so unhappy, swallowing his pride and making the offer. "…you can have it."

Mal glanced to River, and his head was suddenly filled with the anger, the rage, the protective impulse. "Maybe," he said, his voice still cool and reasonable. "But first, if you please, how'd you know all about my pilot?"

His voice was too polite; the kind of polite that usually meant he was about to kill somebody.

There was a shuffling of feet. Everybody else had noticed what was happening, and was positioning themselves to take sides. Jayne was suddenly at Mal's elbow, and even if the man couldn't be trusted half the time, you could always trust that in a fight he'd more than handle his own.

And he was just dying to prove it.

Mal glanced at River, who was feeling a little nauseous. Blood was enjoying this—would enjoy it even more if they started fighting. He was a creature of Blood, both in name and in deed. She was beginning to suspect that he had picked that name out, that his amusement at the name was in the rightness of it.

So she spoke up. "You were there, before, weren't you?" she asked, trying to sort out all the dangerous little bits of him. Trying to figure out the familiarity, and where she had felt his presence before.

Mal's shoulders squeezed together, and she knew that he would go for his gun in a heartbeat.

Blood's smile turned towards her, and there was a dangerous charm in it now. "My crazy-talk is a little rusty, pet," he said, and the lazy drawl was filled with implications she didn't like.

"In the place with the needles," she said. "You were there. I never saw you, but you were there."

He twitched a bit. He knew what she was talking about, and he knew she was in his head. He was trying to hide the important bits, but he couldn't hide everything. She saw him watching, and felt happiness, satisfaction, at her own escape.

She looked around. He wasn't the only one. The squat man had flown the ship that picked her up, she saw. He was a simple mercenary, with no complicated mind like Blood, no defenses against her Reading. "You're the people Simon paid to help!" she said, surprised by the revelation, and entirely taken off guard.

Blood sighed. "Another good deed comes back to haunt me."

Mal's face cleared. They were mercenaries, and they had been slightly involved in River's escape. That made him far more inclined to trust them. "So, then, you're planning to fight a Blade? Seeing as that's the biggest, baddest ship in the Verse, I take it you're not planning on just taking it head on."

Blood grinned back at him. "Well, a frontal assault is obviously out—I'm a mite attached to this life, such as it is. I presume the rest of your crew will be joining us shortly…? We'll all need to move on out of here. Such messes as I make tend to come back to haunt us. We're meeting up with my … crew … I'll give you the coordinates. Bring your ship."

"Not armed," said Mal, just a little touchy about that suddenly.

"Won't make a difference. We're none of us in this in the traditional way," replied Blood, smirking. "Anyway, you're all invited to dinner."

5.

Dinner with the pirates. River wasn't entirely sure how she was supposed to feel about that. These folks were, for the most part, just survivors of the first war, getting into a guerilla war that is meant to sap the Alliance's great strength.

Most of them are far too noble about it, seeing this as a chance to right wrongs and free the galaxy.

In addition to Brian the hairy man-mountain, Yoko, and the dwarf (Blood calls him various names, but none are his name, and River hasn't found it out quite yet), there are several other warriors. Most of them are muscle. A tall man with a long scar on his face and a thin, scratchy beard. A man who looks like he weighs twice as much as Jayne, and is half his height.

And, at the head of the table, the too-pretty man who smiled too much.

He was even harder to read than Blood, and she'd thought Blood was closed off. She had never seen a mind like this before, all doors and walls and barriers. Sometimes it was like he wasn't even there.

He was tall, as tall as Jayne. And he was pleasant and charming, unlike Blood. Mal didn't trust him, on sight. Charming pleasant men didn't sit well with him, for some reason.

"Call me Liam," said the tall man, with a bit of a smile. "So, Captain Reynolds..." He paused here, waiting for a similar first-name invitation that wasn't coming. He covered by nodding at Blood. "Our William here tells me you're pretty good with that gun there. Very fast, very sure."

Mal nodded brusquely. "Better'n some, slower'n others. Just how are you planning to fight a Blade, exactly?"

Jayne, sitting at Mal's side, hunched his shoulders thoughtfully. River could pick up the steady flow of thoughts from him as easily as listening to her own thoughts—easier, most days. He's unguarded mentally. _We oughta ditch this. Ain't no pay good enough for a war like this. Ain't no way to fight a Blade; none._

"Obviously, we can't fight it," replied Liam. "So we've used subterfuge and my contacts to find out their route, and we mined it ahead of time. They're going to take severe damage entering the system. Once they do, they'll dock for repairs."

"We're going to be aboard the dry-dock station," said Blood. He was watching River a bit too closely. She hadn't forgotten that he knew what she was, even though Simon had never told him. Mal hadn't caught that, but she was paying very close attention. "Sneak in the night before, before the security lockdown when they know it's coming in for repairs."

"I take a team to the forward engines, sabotage them, William will arrange our getaway…"

"Just like that?" asked Mal, skeptically.

"William is good at getting away," replied Liam, but there were daggers in the words. Blood didn't wince, instead grinning, a leer aimed right at River.

She tried reaching into his head again, but it was frustrating. How were these two so shut down?

It occurred to her briefly that the reason they might know about her was some sort of kinship. That idea floored her, and she studied them. William could fight much better than he had any right to, well enough to face her, and she had been trained to extreme deadlieness.

It would explain why she couldn't get into their heads, only get these dark whispers of death, dying and blood. Both of them were so filled with darkness. What if somebody had put it there?

She decided that was the explanation. Somebody had dug into their head and given them the same unfiltered reality they'd given her. They were her brothers in spirit. That was why they had taken Simon's money and helped her.

She smiled at Blood, who glowered at that. He ignored her for the rest of the meeting, apparently more unnerved by that smile than by her attempts to kill him. She filed that away for future use.

When she turned back to the others, Mal was just agreeing to help provide some kind of distraction to facilitate the getaway.

"I want to help," she chimed in. Mal gave her an odd look.

"Of course," he said slowly, drawing it out.

"I mean them," said River. "I want to go with them."

Mal frowned slightly. As much as he loved the idea of a Resistance, he still didn't trust the particulars, it was clear. "I don't think…"

"I can help," she said.

And he didn't want to let her. She could see that. But at the same time he couldn't stop her.

Liam smiled politely, and thought terrible things about her neck. Blood just sulked.


	2. Chapter 2

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 2

1.

The Blade was a different kind of ship. It was like a solid wall in front of them, approaching the little dry dock station that would encompass one part of it like a glove for repairs. There was so much of it that as it approached the human mind automatically tried to scale it down, to understand it as a tiny model of what it actually was. Like seeing a planet from the outside.

River's mind couldn't filter out anything. She stared out at the monolith, forcing her mind ever larger to handle the blunt reality of it.

It hurt like opening her mind to the full reality of a Reaver, letting them in, unfiltered and unvarnished. She could feel the edges of her mind cracking under the pull.

Blood flipped the blind over the viewing port closed, cutting off her view. "Stare too much into that abyss, and it won't just stare back at you, love," he said. He wasn't entirely unkind about it, but it made her aware that he noticed her little frayed moments, the lapses when she was losing her grip.

He was terribly observant, and usually in an overtly unkind way. It felt like a violation, somehow. Like mind-reading, which he might actually do.

She tested that, imagining the most vile curses she could think of—which, thanks in large part to Jayne and Mal, were quite extensive—and aiming them at him.

He didn't even twitch, a sure sign he couldn't pick up on the invisible realities she walked in.

How odd.

She leaned against the wall, wondering just where a man like this began. She could see Mal's beginnings in his eyes, the honest labor working under his mother's tutelage. She could see the many surrogate fathers teaching him about hunting, and fighting.

She could see the war, which had pounded a hard new set of rules into him.

"You weren't a Browncoat," she said to the pirate. He sneered at her.

"Pick that up in my brain, love?" he asked derisively. It was strange the way he used the word; there was no affection in it, no actual love. Turning the word against itself.

"No, in your friends. They follow you, but they don't respect you," she said, nodding at the apparent contradiction. He shrugged.

"They're short-sighted. Think I was a coward because I sat out that war. Wasn't bloody well my war, was it?"

"No, it wasn't," she said thoughtfully.

"Thought it wasn't, anyway. Turns out I was wrong."

She looked into those icy, cold blue eyes, which told of a man who knew hatred and pain beyond any reason. He had fought in wars, and she knew that without reading anything off of him. But what his wars could be was completely beyond her.

"Do you not like fighting hopeless wars?" she asked.

"Spend all my life at that game," he replied. Off-handedly, not wearily at all. It was a war beyond all comprehension, and he didn't even care. It was a war against reality that he fought. A war to change things to the way he wanted them.

She supposed he would never win that war.

"How much time?" he asked the radio at his side.

It hesitated, then the tall woman, Yoko, spoke. "Just a few more minutes. They're docking now; we'll be setting the gift bag shortly."

Blood grinned.

"Why did you want me with you?" asked River, the question she'd wanted to ask ever since they'd split up from the others to come here, to this viewing port.

"Seems to me that you wouldn't be much use blowing things up; you're a survivor, like me, aren't you?" he asked, and it was only mostly rhetorical. "I'm good at getting out of jams, and I think you are too. Together, I reckon we can get everybody out of here."

She sighed. "Secrets are kept too well in your head. You're a closed book."

He laughed. "It's been a while, but my crazy speak isn't that rusty. You can't Read me? Hilarious! I was afraid you'd be overturning every rock in my head—pick up everything!"

"And you still invited me."

"Well, you would have got ample chance anyway, later on in the plan, during the running part," he replied logically. "Because we'll all be trapped on that little Firefly of yours until the rendezvous with this new, all-brilliant plan…"

The sarcasm in the words was cutting. He didn't trust his own superior's plans. It surprised her. He had stepped in lockstep with Liam, as if they were one person. That he had disagreed fundamentally had never occurred to her.

She examined the smooth, alabaster skin of his face, the lines of his cheekbone. He was almost pretty when viewed a certain way; but it was all a hard, dangerous beauty. He could kill her, she understood, and hardly feel bad at all about it.

He frowned, looking away from her. "Easy, pet. Look at me like that too much and I'll think you aren't a dangerously unstable killing machine… or, worse, I'll remember all the many relationships I've had with those."

"You like that part of me?" She tilted her head, appraising that. "You would, of course. You like violence."

"Lots of men do."

"Not as much as you. Even Jayne—poor, simple Jayne—would much rather give than receive. You don't really seem to mind, do you? Being on the receiving end?"

"Well, there's some pleasant memories there," he replied, giving her a smarmy leer loaded with about as much foulness as he can fit in. But she could see the put-on. He wanted to shock her, to make her drop it.

"You're talking about a specific woman, aren't you?" she asked him, crossing her arms. "You pretend to be all tough and mean, but you know about love and things like that, don't you? You know, Jayne doesn't really believe in love—not that kind of love, anyway. But you do, don't you? For all that you don't care about your friends, your crew, or even yourself. You believe you can care for one person more than yourself."

His face fell, a little bit at a time. "Aw, hell," he muttered. "I'd forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of an unpleasant dose of truth, I guess. You're good at it; you were even coherent, this time."

"Avoiding, avoiding," she needled, in a sing-song voice.

He grinned at her, and it was the first time she had seen his face without malice. It was shocking how it peeled the years off his face. "I believe in a love so pure and true it can make a monster want to be a man. I believe in a love that, even unrequited, will burn you down to the depths of all that you are, and make you something new. I've known many types of love—a twisted, codependent love, that dragged me down. An unhealthy love. Pure love. Sweet love. Even a father's love. Believe in it? Like I believe in gravity, or the blood that flows in me. I've seen it, felt it, experienced it."

She wouldn't have believed that the hard, mean, blood-thirsty mercenary could admit to tender feelings so easily. Couldn't have believed he would smile while doing it.

She was blown away by the genuineness of it, as well. He wasn't just claiming to believe in it, he meant it. She knew that Mal didn't believe. Zoe did—but she had loved and lost, and it was a bittersweet belief. Jayne believed in a world where family was everything, but refused to let anybody else into that place in his heart. He had learned to be as mean as he knew the world could be.

Kaylee, sweet Kaylee, believed that love and sex walked hand in hand, romantically, and there wasn't much deeper or beyond that. Simon believed the same.

The Shepherd and Inara shared strangely dualistic views, where love and sex sometimes, but rarely, intersected.

But this man believed in love in a way that put them all to shame. In a love that burned and consumed, according to him. A love that dominated his world.

She believed he would do anything for love.

"Are you and Liam lovers?" she blurted out.

He blanched, insofar as his pale complexion would allow. "What? No! That's preposterous! That's… why do you ask?"

"If you believe in that love, why are you here, with him, instead of somewhere else… with her?" asked River, shaking her head. "What is he to you?"

He closed his eyes, frowning slightly. "I'm afraid the girl in question is dead and buried, love. And even if she weren't, I poured everything I had into making it work, and in the end, it wasn't enough. Love unrequited, when you push it onto somebody else, turns ugly. I couldn't do that to her, nor to anyone else."

He opened his eyes, pinning her with that piercing gaze that could tear right through her. "You see," he continued. "Liam is family. Always has been. I've hated him, I've loved him, I've wanted to be him—usually all at the same time. But that's a different sort of love, and it's one I believe in too. Don't you?"

And she thought of Mal, who was so many things to her. Who believed in her, and who had killed for her, and was willing to do so again. Mal, who had protected her when she was at her weakest. Mal who had picked her up and carried her out of Maidenhead as gently as a father or a brother.

She thought of Simon, who was willing to sacrifice his life, and even his love, to do his duty as a brother. Who had destroyed his career and left everything he had known.

"I believe in that," she said softly.

Sometimes she got confused. She wasn't sure what she knew, and what she was borrowing from other heads. Mal was the same way, most the time. He filled his own gaps with his crew. They were his heart, his belief. Everything he had lost.

But this belief was hers, something she had learned from life and from her family, as odd as they were.

Blood chuckled, a low, amused sound that should have been like salt in a wound. It was knowing. It was slightly condescending.

But it also was something good coming out of him. A shared chuckle, rather than laughing at her, as he had been doing since they met.

It occurred to her belatedly that this connection would not be taken well by, say, Mal. Or Simon. Or Zoe, or Jayne, or even sweet Kaylee, so quick to see the good in other people. Because he didn't want them to see the good in him; he wanted them to fear him, to run away from him.

And he would show them all the worst parts of himself. The unashamed glory for violence. The terrible appetites for blood and sex. And while there was better things than that in him, none of those would be shown.

None of his belief in love or family. Because these people weren't his, and wouldn't ever be.

So why had he been so open and free with her?

She cocked an eyebrow up, giving him an examining stare. Mal would assume that he was making a pass at her—that it was all sexual. Perhaps Simon would as well. Was it?

He grinned a little bit. "What's that for, love?"

"Just wondering. You're not at all like me, are you? I thought you might be, but nobody cut in your head."

He grimaced. "Well… not for a long time, anyway. And not the same crew. Did you think that was why I knew about you?"

"Why did you know?"

He smiled. "Do you really think your brother could just find a group of mercs who would jack somebody out of a prison like you were in? Nobody's that gutsy, not even for the money we got from him."

"If you knew… why not just grab me yourself? A handy weapon in hand? Or, if you're as nice as that story makes you… why not try to protect me?"

He grimaced. "Because I'm a little nicer than I seem, but not that nice. Protecting you would have been nice. If I'd had you in hand? Then? While you were broken and incoherent? I would have killed you myself, pet. Torn your little head right off."

It was her turn to blanch. She backed away from him, and remembered for the first time that he truly was as terrible as he wanted everybody to believe.

He looked at her with eyes that weren't troubled at all by his words, but there was a bit of apology there. "Best I could do, pet, was let you go, and hope you found your own way. I can't nurture something hurt and broken—I've already got a full-time job doing just that. Speaking of which, we've been docked for five minutes; the fix is in, the bomb is set, and the rest of them ought to be coming right now."

A guard came running down the hallway, screaming, drawing River's attention away from his words, which were cold, calloused, and so oddly truthful.

Behind the guard came Liam.

She hadn't been scared of the big man before, but that was because she hadn't realized just how scary he could be. How much of a predator he was.

He was stalking the guard, a smile on his face. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail behind his head, giving him a halo. He was a killer with the face of an angel; a dark champion who was reveling in the darkness, not the championing. He was loping along in a jog, easily keeping up with the short guard's panicked run with those long, lethal legs.

He grabbed the guard, twisting his neck in one, long stride, letting the dead body fall behind him as he came up to Blood and River. "And how are you two doing?" he asked. "William, we have our path clear?"

River flinched. "Blood, Blood. A name to disassociate, to take away his humanity. He doesn't want it. You force it back, naming him William. Every time."

He frowned. "I hope you aren't listening too much to our dear William; he has a habit to say things he ought not to say."

Blood let out a ragged sigh. "Like telling her we ought to have killed her? Yes, I'm a prat. Ready to go?"

"Ready," said Liam, rubbing a hand over his face.

Blood turned and headed back the way they'd come, towards the shuttle. Liam fell in beside him, while Yoko, Brian, and the dwarf fell in behind them. River followed, wondering why she had bothered to come along.

"I hid Reynolds in the aft bay, with his little ship," said Blood, in an undertone. "I also hid about fifteen pounds of the heavy stuff… to cover our tracks."

Liam grunted. "Keep your head clear on this girl, William. We may need to go with the nuclear option yet."

Blood scowled at him, glancing back over his shoulder at River. Those piercing blue eyes could hit her like a blow, she discovered. "I know," he muttered, and apparently he didn't think River could hear him. "Lost little girls with deep emotional problems, right? Don't think I didn't see your eyes light up back there."

Liam glanced back. "She can hear us."

"I don't care, do I?"

River was having a hard time sorting them out.

2.

The running part went well, in River's opinion. A short dash through messy halls, a quiet time of waiting for Blood to blow things up and provide a distraction, and then a loud, explosive wait for Mal to do his part of the plan.

Mal was ready, of course. He was always ready for his part.

River was more than a little worried about him. This game was for keeps, for real; no going back. Full-out rebellion against a monolith that couldn't be budged.

It was for idealists. Not Mal, the realist. Not Mal, who she could not bear to see die the inevitable death of idealists.

They entered Serenity in a hurry, running up the gangplank. River realized it was a trap the second her foot hit the ramp.

"Down!" she yelled, jumping to one side.

Blood dove, but Liam just turned around, bemused. As he turned a gun fired, and the bullet must have just missed him. He twisted and leapt off the gangplank.

Yoko pulled a gun out, firing into the ship haphazardly. A volley of gunfire came out of the ship, far more than Mal or even Jayne could have supplied. At least twelve weapons, some of them automatic.

She could sense Jayne and Mal, both of them with plans to get the ship back from the dozen soldiers who had showed up; she could sense soldiers.

And in the middle of them all, she could sense somebody far more dangerous than either of them. Somebody who hadn't brought too many soldiers with him because they was after somebody in particular; an Operative, with all the power to commandeer a whole fleet, and all the sense to keep this trap small, so they wouldn't see it coming.

The gunfire ceased, and a cold, female voice from within the ship rang out. "My, my, Liam. Careless, much? Surely you didn't sabotage the Blade with only this little cargo ship for an escape?"

Liam, pressed against the side of the ship, let out a musical curse in Chinese. Blood craned his neck, trying to see into the ship without presenting his head as a target. "How d'you think he knew?" he asked Liam, backing up towards River slowly.

When he reached her he put a hand out and grabbed her shoulder. She wasn't entirely sure why; to restrain her, keep her from attacking? Reassure her? Just make sure she was still there?

That didn't matter. The effect was electrifying. His grip was cool, strong, and masculine, and it made her heart pound.

She had heard of this; she had experienced it, second-hand, through the couples that formed up on Serenity. It had seemed more distant then—less powerful, less arresting. Less scary.

She pushed the hand off her shoulder as if she'd been stung. He didn't notice, focusing on the gunfire. "Liam, you bring grenades?" he asked.

She slapped the back of his head, hard. "The crew's still alive!" she growled.

Zoe and Kaylee were on the bridge, with more enemy soldiers. Inara in the engine room with Jayne—Mal and Simon, in the infirmary.

"If you surrender, your associates will remain unharmed," shouted the too-cold voice from inside. His mind was as cold as his voice.

River glanced back at the others, who'd been behind them on the gangplank. Yoko had been cut down, lying in a spreading crimson pool; Brian was wounded, and crawling for cover. The dwarf was nowhere in sight.

Blood twisted his head from side to side. "That hurt, you bloody witch! Touch me like that again and I'll break both your hands."

"Try," she advised him. He wasn't looking at her, and she could see tension almost radiating off the taut muscles of his back. The pirate was utterly focused on the door, and she wondered just who their enemy was. And why they hadn't just set a bomb to kill everybody when they returned.

"I'm serious," yelled their enemy once more. "You want me to come out there?"

Blood sighed. "Did he gas them, or storm the ship?"

Liam shook his head. "Gassed them; there's that stench to the air."

"Lovely," complained Blood. He turned around to face River. "Crazy, you head for the top of the ship; climb up and gain access through the back door. Liam an' me, we'll do something reckless."

She took a few seconds to think about that, biting her lower lip. "You wouldn't stand a chance."

"Yeah, but that's sort of the point." He stared at her lower lip, though, and she stopped biting it quickly. He smirked at her, apparently all too aware of the effect he had on her, and how uncomfortable she was with it. "They won't be expecting something that crazy, will they? Now, scoot!"

But she had no intentions of doing that. She knew that no matter how good they were, there was a hail of bullets waiting for them. She might be able to do it; storm in there and single-handedly take them all out. Jumping where they didn't expect, away from the places they were about to point their weapons. The only problem was that with that many guns, that many different minds, she might miss one—catch just one little bullet.

That would never do.

His face shifted; apparently, he understood her hesitation. "Don't think it!" he hissed. "Nothing noble, nothing stupid! Liam and me, we have a plan! This ain't all as it seems—that woman in there has a history with us, and it's not simple!"

But she could hear the words he wasn't saying, and couldn't stop a bubbling little laugh. "Wait, this is about a woman?" she asked, smiling.

He scowled. "It's not just—that's complicated, and what-not! Bloody psi…"

But now that she was this close and staring him in that face, she picked up on something she hadn't before, in the bar. Everything in him was written on his face, emotions playing openly there. Shock, fear, and a gnawing worry.

Not for himself, or for Liam. And not for his crew. For this woman, with the cold voice.

River squinted into his face. She hadn't realized they were so close in height; he carried such a formidable physical presence with him that it was easy to miss his diminutive stature, but as soon as his anger ebbed, it was right there.

It was odd.

He lashed out, punching her in the face. She stumbled and sprawled across the ground, more surprised than hurt.

"We're coming out!" he yelled, pulling his guns out and tossing them to the ground where the soldiers inside could see them. "Don't shoot!"

Liam stepped around the corner of the ship, his hands up. River hadn't noticed, but he wasn't armed at all. That was a little bit shocking.

Her hand dipped down to her belt and recovered the wickedly curved knife Jayne had given her. It was easy to hide, easy to use, and in his words, 'too girly for a real man.'

That was a pretense, of course. It was his way of saying thank you for saving his life from the Reavers; something he could never say out loud, and was ashamed even to think. Especially for a _feng dian_ girl like her.

She wasn't entirely sure what she was expecting. The woman who walked out to meet Liam and Blood was tall, taller than Blood. Her blonde hair was intricately braided and pulled back out of her face, and she was wearing white leather clothes that made her look more than a little slutty.

She was carrying a shotgun, and she pointed it right at Blood's face.

"Screw with me and I will blow your attack dog's head right off," she said to Liam.

Liam smiled at her, and he was suddenly smooth, and charming. Like a snake about to strike. "I think we ought to leave."

"You overloaded the Blade's main engines?" she asked. "You're going to blow the entire civilian population of this dock to bits, and not lose a minute's sleep over it? You are a monster."

His smile never wavered. "If we don't leave now, we'll be part of that equation. _Dong ma?_"

She never wavered. Her eyes were gray, and steely. River probed outward, looking under the surface, rolling into a ready crouch. From here she could get close enough to cut all three of their throats, and then head inside, into the ship, to rescue everybody else.

Under the woman's surface, into her head, River found things that were private and secret. Images of both of these pirates naked. Images of one them tied up. Secrets within secrets. Infiltrating the Resistance, only to find them infiltrating her, turning her against her masters.

Then discovering what monsters these men could truly be. Finding something hidden and dark—a connection the very highest echelons of the Alliance. Liam did all their sabotage because his voiceprint and thumbprint could walk him through any guarded door, past any security check.

Then, the cavalry arrived.

3.

Mal walked right out onto the gangplank as if he owned the ship. Of course, he did own it; he'd just temporarily lost control when a dozen soldiers had walked in the door, weapons up.

Bad odds.

But then they had just been plain stupid. Keeping the crew under guard is important, sure. And keeping them somewhere secure is important.

But breaking them up into groups? Putting them in separate sections of the ship? A dangerous error.

Jayne had taken advantage of it fairly quickly, using a wrench as his weapon. Inara had proved useful too, using her training adeptly.

And Simon, in the infirmary? Had passed a sedative in a syringe to the captain, keeping one for himself. Their captors hadn't stood much of a chance.

Zoe and Kaylee? Their biggest problem had been that Kaylee was shocked and horrified at how much Zoe had hurt their captors.

The dozen men in the cargo hold had been pointed the wrong way, focused too hard on an external threat that was not coming in. Disarming them was easy; doing it quietly had been a challenge.

Mal loved a challenge.

He pressed the barrel of a gun that wasn't his own against the base of the woman's neck. "Drop it," he said, smiling at the way she jerked her head slightly to one side, taken entirely off guard.

Take him, on his own ship? Hold him, on his own ship? Use him as part of a trap, on his own ship?

Mal thought not.

She dropped the gun. Blood rushed, in scooping it up, and wrapped an arm around the woman's shoulders, pulling her into the ship. "Let's GO!" he said urgently.

Liam glanced back at River, and beckoned to her. "Get the doctor," he said to Mal. "Look's like we're going to need him." He nodded back at Brian, the towering mountain of muscle and hair, who the dwarf was dragging back towards them.


	3. Chapter 3

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 3

1.

River hated to push _Serenity_ this hard. It seemed like a poor way to treat the old girl. But right now, with the engines screaming feedback in her ears, she pushed a little harder. She felt the tremble in the deck that meant she was giving all she had, but River had to ask her for more.

She watched the rear-view monitor. It was grainy, and didn't display very well. But all she could see there was a wall of color. Bright color. An explosion so big it was like a little sun, consuming and breaking.

And the terrible wails behind her as everything died out, minds snuffed from existence so fast it might have taken her breath away.

Liam and Mal were behind her, saying volumes in silence. Mal wanted to know more about their prisoners; Liam wanted to say nothing.

And Mal was letting him get away with it; the worst part of all. Because as far as he was concerned, he was part of something now. Part of a Resistance that he needed like he needed air, a cause he could believe in.

And Liam was a superior officer.

Now that River had caught a little bit more of what Liam was truly like, this bothered her. A lot.

This Resistance wasn't what she had imagined, not at all. In fact, it was pretty much the opposite. She had hoped to find something like kinship; hoped to find people who understood her.

Instead, she had found people who knew what she was, and who thought killing her just might solve _that_ problem.

She hadn't even realized Blood thought of her as a problem to be solved, but it was fairly obvious in retrospect. She was a weapon he couldn't let his enemies, the Alliance, get their hands on. A weapon he needed either neutralized or killed.

She stabilized their trajectory, watching Liam out of the corner of her eye, out of the corner of her mind.

Where was Blood, anyway?

Their tight, locked-up minds made her angry. She should have been able to pick and probe these people as easily as Jubal Early. As easily as anybody.

So she set the auto-pilot. "We're safe enough, now. Faster than their intercepts," she said blithely, interested by how Mal jumped at her voice as if stung. "Going to check on the prisoner now."

Another sore spot. Mal knew all too well that the safest way to deal with a prisoner with a grudge was to kill them. And he had already begun steeling himself for it.

Because Mal, for all his rules about being ruthless, had trouble killing women. He should have killed Saffron, that one time he'd had her where he could have done it. He'd known that, sure as he'd known that leaving Niska alive was a mistake.

But killing Niska would have been the same thing, wouldn't it have? Killing a defenseless prisoner. And he was able to rationalize it by telling himself that he couldn't afford a blood feud with Niska's people.

And killing Saffron… he would rather risk her stripping him naked and leaving him in the desert to die than do that. Or, worse, risk her killing him. That had been a serious risk in his plan, and they all knew it.

But that time was gone, and now they had an even worse threat on board. An agent of the Alliance, against whom they had declared war by attacking one of their prized vessels.

River found them in the cargo hold. She was tied to a chair, completely immobile. Blood was prowling around her like an animal, making an invisible perimeter around her. He wasn't questioning her, or even talking to her.

She was glaring at him, but in silence.

The rest of the crew was waiting, and watching. The doorway to the engine room held Kaylee. Jayne was standing on the catwalk, looking down at them. Inara stood in the doorway to her shuttle. Simon wasn't there, of course. He was back in his medical bay with Blood's men, seeing to the wounded.

Zoe was down on the floor of the cargo bay, standing by the stairs. Waiting.

They all knew how this would end, what a man like that would have to do to protect the Resistance. Why Liam had left his attack dog here with her.

Only Blood didn't seem to understand the situation yet.

"You want name, rank, and serial number?" asked the Operative, antagonizing him.

He ignored this. There was something about the pacing that bothered River. He wasn't just forcing her to stay in—he was keeping other people out, too. He was trying to keep control of this situation, even as it spiraled out of control.

River knew that she needed to intervene, but she waited.

"You're the worst kind of man," hissed the Operative. "You've betrayed your own ideals. Betrayed everything."

"Shut your face," he said. "You don't understand my ideals."

River was beginning to. He pretended to have none, but something drove him. Liam pretended to have none, but something drove him even harder. The two of them weren't as simple as their mission statement; they weren't truly the Resistance they pretended to be.

They were something else entirely.

She had to figure out what was going on with that.

The woman in the white leather tossed her head, growling something angrily. Blood dragged her back up onto the chair, shaking his head. "You're entirely too stupid," he said, and resumed marching around her.

It was a protective circle. He knew that her life was hanging by a thread, and he planned to keep her alive. River was amused by his bizarre, backwards way of doing this.

She was also angry, because she was scouring through the very guarded woman sitting there on the chair, tied up. All that was in her was twisted and ugly, a lifetime of training to inflict pain and suffering. She didn't really know how to do anything else.

River empathized with that. Killing came so easily, so matter-of-factly. Being nice, being good? Those took time, and effort, and she felt like she was her bumbling brother Simon when she tried. There were rules, and inflections, and all kinds of things she didn't understand.

There was a bright streak of red blood on the white leather now, from the dribble coming from the woman's nose. Looking at it, River felt excited—in a very sexual way, too. She had to stop for a second, realizing the emotion wasn't her own. Realizing somebody else was feeling very sadistic, very out of control.

Of course it was Blood.

River watched the man for a little bit, staring at the fuzzy almost-bald head. Staring at those bright blue eyes.

He let out a hissing noise, glancing around at the crew. He was putting on a show for them. River understood this. A show of hate.

He didn't feel any hate at all for the woman tied up. Pity, perhaps.

River wondered what it would feel like to scour her fingers over his scalp, to feel the short hairs pricking at her palm. She wondered what his skin felt like, stretched across those cheekbones. She wondered what he tasted like.

She was more than aware that this was a very dangerous man, and a more dangerous time for fantasy. But he was aroused, and she couldn't help but let that course through her, the emotions, the feelings.

She couldn't read him at all, but she could almost touch him, from across the room. She could feel the coldness of each angry breath that he blew out.

He slapped the woman in white, again. River could feel the hard impact against her own cheek, a blow that shook her and almost knocked her down.

Nobody noticed except Jayne. He could be observant, sometimes, which scared her. He was the last of them she would have wanted to notice when she was weak, but he was always the first to notice. Like a predator.

Which he was, from a certain point of view.

So was Blood, who was stalking in circles around the woman again, stomping his boots on the deck. River decided to go down there and test the waters. If she had to fight him again, she wanted to land the first blow this time.

She stalked forward, letting her hips sway just a little more than was necessary. An almost feminine movement, but it really borrowed more from a lioness in motion than a woman. It was a threatening, aggressive movement.

It caught his attention immediately. His eyes were sharp for threats, the eyes of a man who's missed those warnings before and been kicked in the face.

So of course he watched her come, sneering at her. "Got a problem with the way I'm treating the prisoner, love?" he asked, mockingly. "Want me to take it easy, do you?"

She didn't answer, staring at him as solemnly as she could. "What about you?" she asked.

His face hardened. "I can never tell how deep you can read me, know that, crazy? It drives me a little bonkers myself."

She wasn't sure if she really did want to protect this Agent of the faceless forces that had pursued her for so long. Sure, right now the Operative was looking for Liam and Blood, but that might change. Soon the same people would be trying to kill River.

And she was not amused by people trying to kill her, unlike some of the crew.

She could sense Jayne getting ready to fight. He had her back, which made her feel good and a bit icky at the same time. Jayne was a good man to have behind you in a fight, and a bad man to have behind you at all times. Also, even though he was fairly repulsed by her, he had no compunctions about staring at her butt. He had no idea at all that she could tell, even with her back to him.

And she had considered saying something, but had noticed that where Inara fought back against his innuendo and leers, it only excited him. He liked that sort of resistance—and she very much didn't like the idea of him enjoying fighting her.

She preferred his fear and respect.

Blood sneered, reaching out and grabbing her shoulder roughly. His group was too tight, harsh, and shouldn't have excited her nearly as much as it did.

He was making it difficult for her to think, with his terribly masculine presence and his entirely preoccupied thoughts. She slapped his hand away from her arm, confused by it. "Don't touch me."

"Don't like it? Or like it a little too much?" he asked, smirking.

She got a flash of what he was thinking, then. Or maybe he projected it forcefully. An image of him grabbing her, pushing her against the wall, trapping her with his body. Holding her. Touching her.

The thought burned into her mind, and she whirled forward, striking him. Punching him in the face, slamming her fist into it with the force to drive those thoughts right out of him.

He'd done it on purpose, she knew. Trying to manipulate her, to get her to stop talking and thinking. Because he didn't want her to unravel the problems he had with this woman. Didn't want her reading through this woman, finding even worse things.

So she advanced, hitting him again, and widened her mind, trying to drag everything out of this woman.

The Operative twitched, apparently aware something very wrong was happening in her head. River tore through, as she'd never tried to do, looking for something Blood didn't want her to see.

She saw him naked again, but this time she could see scars along his sides, and she was tracing them gently. He was saying something terribly important, warning the woman in white that she wouldn't like the next part.

The next part was a strike on the Alliance.

The next part was the discovery that they knew she was a spy in their midst, that as she had been trying to play them against each other, sleeping with both of them, they had been revealing all to each other. That they knew.

She could see Liam, with a smile like a deadly archangel, breaking somebody's neck with those powerful hands. She could see Blood using iron bars as deadly weapons, then driving one through the skull of an enemy.

She could see her own assault team, handpicked, lying broken and beaten all around.

And they'd let her live, for some reason.

River could see them fighting, then. A vicious, violent fight, smashing each other through walls, using deadly weapons. Guns, knives, fists. She could see Blood slamming Liam's face into the wall over and over again, screaming. Blood was flying everywhere.

River was too distracted by this trip through the blond woman's brain, and Blood darted forward, grabbing her by the neck and swinging her around, managing to punch Jayne, who was moving forward to back her up.

Jayne slammed down to the deck, surprised by the force of the attack. For a small man, Blood had a lot of hidden strength.

"Let's be honest, little girl," snarled Blood. "You may be a walking assassin with a weakness for seeing into other people's brains. But you're also vulnerable in so many ways!"

She had held the Reavers out of her own brain long enough to fight them, and if she needed to, she could block out the stream of anger, hate, and arousal she was getting from him, too.

Mal arrived, running down from the bridge, gun out. Liam was there, behind him, reaching forward and snatching the gun out of his hand before he could fire. "William!" snarled the bigger man. "What do you think you're doing?"

Blood pulled River closer, close enough to whisper in her ear. "Are you going to start talking now, girl? Say too much, and there'll be hell to pay."

And he wasn't lying, right now. Wasn't trying to point her somewhere else, misdirect her, shock her. He was just trying to do… something.

She was still confused. "I'm alright, captain," she said.

Mal was glaring. "What in the hell are you doing?" he demanded, aiming it at Blood.

Blood was sneering. "She tried to step in while I was questioning the prisoner, oh captain my captain. Never a good idea to step in at a moment like that, now is it? At any rate, your crew is far too squeamish for proceedings like this. Could you all go about your supper or some such and leave me alone so I can do this properly?"

Liam made a rough sound, halfway between a growl and a laugh. "Yes, leave us to this work. We're good at it."

Jayne scrambled to his feet, glancing to Zoe. She had a hand on her gun, but hadn't drawn, not even when he'd been knocked down. "You just gonna stand there and watch him kill me?" demanded Jayne.

"Two of you and one of him; didn't seem fair to add more," she drawled.

River put her hand on the hand still wrapped loosely around her neck. She tried to peel it off, but he held on firmly. "You've always let me handle the torturing," he said. "Trying to take some of the fun for yourself?"

Liam sneered, handing Mal back his gun. "Right. I'm sure you'd use your very best technique, for this one. Come on, folks. This show's over."

Liam led the others away, but Blood hung on to River. Zoe didn't move, waiting. Blood gave her a hard look. "I just want to have a word with her about playing with other people's toys," he said. "I'll play nice."

Zoe eyed him, and still didn't move. River wondered why she was staying, and reached out, touching Zoe's mind. Inside everything was strong, and hard. And nobody was allowed to grab a crewmember like that. She was waiting for Blood to let go so she could teach him that.

Blood chuckled. "Later, love. We'll settle up later. For now, just give me a minute, eh?"

Zoe was like a wall of stone. She kept her hand on the butt of her gun, smiling at him so coldly it might have cut a lesser man. "I've done torture before," she said.

Blood scowled. "I know you want to carve a slice of me off, tell me I'm over the line. I know you're mad I touched your girl here." He nodded his head towards River, their heads so close they were almost touching. She wondered if she ought to try to kill him.

Zoe's smile didn't falter. "Just so we're clear, then."

She left slowly, keeping an eye on River. When she was gone Blood let go, stepping back from River. "Damn lot of mother dogs here, aren't there? All of them in your corner. All right, pet, you think I should just let you go, don't you? Just let you go on making an awful nuisance of yourself. This isn't any of your business. Just go back to the others and let me get on with it."

"With what? If you're going to torture her, I'm a monkey's uncle," said River. "You're trying to keep her alive, is what you're doing, after she tried to kill us all. Just because she gave you a good ride!"

He grimaced. "You can't read my mind."

"I can see your eyes," she said. She was happy that her hunch had proven correct; even happier that he wasn't arguing with her.

He pointed back at the Operative. "You have no idea what she did. She tried to break Liam and me—and we don't allow that sort of thing."

"You fought for her before," said River, her trump card. He was shocked, stepping back away from her, convinced for a second that she could read his mind. It took him a moment to remember that the woman in white had known it too, and had no such protections.

He looked back at her. "How about that, Eva. I did fight for you, and yet you showed up to kill me."

There was some terrible hurt in her mind as she stared at him. "I came to you to kill you, the first time, but you taught me so much," she whispered. "I would have followed you all the way, helped you fight the very head of the Senate—but you were never telling the truth." She turned to face River, her face serious. "Liam has a priority one clearance from the Senate—and his voiceprint and ID check out. They're not trying to overturn the Alliance; they just want to take out their political enemies."

Blood sighed. "And there's the crux of her complaint."

It didn't faze River, who had already worked this out from the bits she had picked out of Eva's mind. "So you're not really Big Damn Heroes—that'll only surprise small children who still believe in those sort of things."

"Don't be so blasé. You believe in them. After all, you and the captain, here, you're bigger heroes than me an' Liam, by all accounts. And, not only that, it's not true."

She smiled indulgently at the obvious lie. "Oh?"

"Look, Liam isn't now an agent—well, maybe. But he wasn't in the past—or maybe he was. And he won't be in the future—unless he will. But I can categorically deny, right now, that whatever he's doing, past, present, or future, is the same as what he's doing here."

She stared at him. Usually she was the one who would say something completely crazy and derail a conversation. "Okay."

"Yeah, it's confusing. What's important is that in the here and now, I trust him. Well, sort of. Sometimes. Look, okay, it's gone so far beyond human understanding that you can't even—do you know anything about time travel?"

"Impossible," she said flatly.

"Yeah, except for that part where I did it. You ever heard the saying 'it ain't rocket science?' It sort of isn't. You're right; we buggered something. I don't know what, or how. Or why. But Liam's here, with me, and he's also… elsewhere. Elsetime. And… you don't believe me."

Neither of them did. River smirked at him knowingly, wondering if he was truly insane, as completely off his rocker as she was. "When I say things like that they give me pills and needles and try to make the crazy go away."

His face turned sour. "I've been crazy, little girl, and it was a lot more fun than this. I know you live in some rational world where things that don't make physical sense don't happen… but I don't. I live in a world where your pretty whore is a whole lot older than she looks; a world where your captain is always drawn into trouble, not because he goes looking for it, but because, bone-deep, he always turns instinctively the wrong way, towards the trouble, when that little tingle in the back of your neck and mine tells us to go the other way."

His words made a strange sort of sense. Inara's memories were a deep pool into which River could plunge herself; sometimes she thought she might drown, they were so deep. Much more deep than a few decades.

But how had he plumbed Inara's secrets when he'd only met her a few times, a few snatches of words?

Inara had returned and was watching them. "You think you know a lot?" she asked, very coldly.

He shrugged. "I've seen your kind hanging around the Guild for a while, kid. A man takes a like to expensive prostitutes…"

"I highly doubt you could procure the services of a Companion," she spat.

He smirked. "Know `m not much to look at, but a creature like me has a fair grasp on what manners are, what polite society is all about… I don't act this way because it's all I know, I act this way because it's all I love. You want me to fit right in, to be the prissy little man gets himself a piece of Companion? I can do that better'n most. As good as your lot is, only one in ten ever catches on I'm just pretending."

She flushed. "I find that hard to believe."

He grabbed River's neck, pushing her away. The sudden violence surprised her, and she was caught entirely off balance. She fell across the deck, just managing to catch herself and roll into a battle-ready crouch.

But he wasn't moving to attack her. He'd been stabbed, from behind, by their prisoner on the floor, a long, wicked flat blade that looked flat enough to hide inside the skin-tight leather she was wearing without being noticed.

He staggered, staring down at the tip sticking out just beneath his ribs. "Bugger," he said, his voice blank. "That's going to be pretty hard to explain." Then he pulled the blade out through his back, sinking to his knees with a gasp.

Eva had managed to get free from her bonds; now that most of the others had left, she was seizing her opportunity to try to finish Blood off.

She hadn't seen River in action, though. River sprinted forward out of her crouch, jumping up and spinning. She was wearing the thick, heavy boots that Mal had bought her when he was well and truly sick of her running around barefoot.

For a second she tumbled through the air, spinning around.

Then both of her feet slammed into Eva's pretty face, taking the assassin off her feet and slamming her back across the deck.

River cartwheeled to a stop on her feet, grabbing the knife Jayne had given her. She raised it, aiming it in Eva's direction. "Don't move," she said.

Eva stayed sprawled on the ground; she was bleeding from her mouth, and her nose looked broken. She gave a little burbling moan.

Blood had found his feet, although was swaying slight. River knew they needed to get him to lie down, to get Simon out here to fix him, but she knew better than to turn away from the very dangerous woman in front of her. "Inara, get Simon," she said.

But the racket had drawn Liam out. He crossed the deck in a flash, grabbing Blood. "Damn you, William!" he snarled, checking the wound. "Go to the room they gave us, the guest room. Don't argue! Go there, and lock the door. I'll see to the wound—nobody touches William but me!"

Then Liam let go and advanced on Eva, grabbing her roughly by the neck and swinging her up. He stood there, feet planted solidly, and held her off the ground by her neck in a one-handed grip, squeezing her throat. "And that especially includes you!" he snarled viciously. "I let you off easy last time because Willy thought you weren't beyond redemption, but the days of me leaving enemies behind me to come back to haunt me are done with!"

He squeezed down on her throat viciously, cutting off her air. She struggled in his grasp, but he held on, his hand like a vise.


	4. Chapter 4

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 4

1.

River stood there frozen for a second that seemed like an eternity. It was completely right and natural for him to kill her this way; it was what Mal would do, what Jayne would do. It was the only way to make her stop trying to kill them all.

It felt terribly, terribly wrong.

Then Liam stumbled, dropping the woman he was choking to the deck. It took River a second to realize he'd been hit by a dart from a stungun. Blood was holding it, his entire arm shaking from the effort. "You always have to push," he complained. "I can take care of myself; and I can take care of you, too, if you get uppity and villainish like that on me."

Liam shook it off, climbing back to his feet. "How long have you been carrying that toy around?"

"How long do you think, ponce? Since last time I tried to knock you on your tail and failed! Crazy girl, go ahead and put that knife away—I think we're sorted."

Liam's face was dark, suddenly. "Are we?"

"We're sorted," said Blood firmly.

River had thought she understood the dynamic. Liam was in charge, and Blood did what he was told. Suddenly the dynamic was upended. They weren't military, and they didn't lead and follow. Instead they were both a pair of alpha dogs, circling each other. Looking for weakness, for a place to attack.

As close as they were, as much as Blood had called Liam family, there was tension between them.

Liam backed down, another surprise for River. These two didn't look like the kind of men who backed down easily.

Inara advanced on Blood cautiously. "We should talk," she said cautiously, examining his face coldly.

2.

Mal was terribly unhappy. He'd gambled on this, joining right up with a Resistance that seemed very much in line with everything he wanted.

He'd gone too far, done too much, and put too much on the line. He'd let these people aboard his ship, taken their orders, and helped them too much.

He had never been one to jump too far too fast. Not like this.

At first it had seemed almost too good to be true. True, Liam's attack dog was wild and over the top—but, then again, so was River. And Mal hadn't been too fazed when they started trading blows. He'd seen his girl go toe to toe with Reavers, and win.

But now it was absolutely clear they were crazy.

Blood, wounded as he was, had dragged their prisoner back to his quarters. Then he'd 'borrowed' a gun from Jayne, and declared he'd shoot anybody who interrupted them.

Mal was pretty certain that meant Liam, mostly.

Liam, on the other hand, was already scheming ways to kill more people, get more attention. He wasn't satisfied with a crippling blow against the Alliance fleet; he wanted to shake up the civilians too. He wanted to attack a Core world.

Mal wasn't just nervous. Mal was beginning to realize just what his obsessions must look like to others. If they looked anything like the scary-dangerous beasts he'd let on his ship, then he needed to change. A lot.

So he sat in the cockpit, watching all the instruments. Waiting to see if the Alliance was able to scramble something to chase them.

3.

Jayne was terribly upset.

Not at the violence. In fact, he was happy that the little man who'd dared hit him before had been stabbed. He would have liked to have done it himself.

Not at the sudden divisions between the crew and their guests. Not at the long haul they had to make with these people.

He was upset Blood had taken one of his guns.

That was crossing a line. Everybody knew that.

Plus, Blood had managed to hit River. Now, Jayne was of several minds about River. She still scared him, and he was still nursing a grudge for all the times she'd hit him.

On the other hand, he felt guilty for that time he'd tried to sell her out. And besides that, she was crew, wasn't she? And she'd saved his life. A man could grow fond of a girl who made a regular habit of that.

And, worst of all, he'd come to think on her as at least a little bit like family. The sort of girl that you didn't treat like all the girls that were just there for sex; the sort of girl that maybe was a little sister, or something like that. The sort of girl you didn't let strangers hit.

That was a strange feeling for Jayne. So far he'd managed to not really think of most of the crew as family. It was just a job, and they were just people he worked with. Okay, after Miranda it was a little harder to feel that way; you do something like that with people, and they were bound to feel a little closer.

But River, who'd hit him more than anybody else on this ship, was also more like him than anybody else. Worse, she'd treat him halfway decent, despite all that he'd done.

So he was confused, and he was more than a little angry about that. He hated having to think too hard about something like that.

But the bottom line was this; he was ready to string Blood up like a Christmas turkey.

4.

River pushed the sliding panel of the guest room open and stepped inside. She already knew that Blood wasn't going to shoot her, and even if he'd meant to, she was pretty sure she could dodge faster than he could aim.

Well, maybe not. She knew he was fast. Still, she was _mildly_ sure she could dodge faster.

He was sitting in one corner; the gun was on the floor beside him. He didn't even reach for it. His eyes were half-closed, and he looked almost lazy.

There was a bandage around his stomach, peeking out under his shirt.

"You really need medical attention," she told him, stepped closer.

His prisoner was sitting in the corner opposite him, tied up. She wasn't gagged, but she was silent.

"I'm fine," he said, smirking. "It wasn't that bad. Come around to make sure I haven't cut her throat?"

"I'm on to you," she told him. "You say terrible things to hide the soft spots. You've been hurt terribly, haven't you? Like a dog that's been kicked. Instead of your belly you refuse to show your emotions."

He scowled. "You sound very, very sane."

"It comes and goes."

He glanced over at Eva; she was wearing a black leather coat now, one that wasn't her size. It was clearly one of Blood's coats.

Blood shivered. "You know, pet, you're awfully nosy. A lesser man might resent that sort of thing."

Eva shuddered. "Is this what flirting looks like between monsters? I may gag."

"Be nice," said Blood. "I think this one came back to the hold to save your life yesterday. Didn't you, pet? You came in with all that righteous anger, and I was so distracted I missed it. You butted your head in because you're as bad as your captain—filled with the sort of goodness and light that most folks miss on account of the darkness covering it."

River thought about the captain, a man of violence and killing, who could be gentler than her own parents. She understood exactly what he meant. "What do you plan to do with her, then?"

Blood shook his head. "All my plans end with her dead, so I'm trying to avoid making any of them. Perhaps when we set down next I can smuggle her out, knock her on the head, and leave her in an alleyway to hunt us down and try to kill us again later."

Eva chuckled. "I suppose it won't help if I vow that the last thing you'll ever see will be me?"

"Nope," said Blood. He was cheerful about it. "You know what the worst part is? I didn't even like her much. Not my type at all. I mean, sure, blonde, skinny, fits a certain profile… but Liam's stuck much more to that than I have. I have my share of brunettes in my past… blue-haired goddesses, the lot. No, I go for the strong women; he prefers victims, usually. Just my opinion."

River smirked, glancing over to Eva. "And you think she's not your type? Seems to me she's as much predator as you."

He sighed. "Stop being so gorram insightful," he grumbled. "Maybe I didn't like her because I don't share well. For all my other inconsistencies I've always been pretty faithful—and besides that, Liam and I have been after the same women one time too many. Now, love, tell me what you want."

River shrugged, moving to the middle of the room, equally close to both of them. "Who can tell?" she whispered. "I've been the girl tied up too often to be comfortable seeing somebody else tied up like that, I guess."

Blood sighed. "I suppose. You want to untie her? I think she has no more knives hidden up her sleeves, but by all means, go ahead. I don't care much. I can always kills her if she tries anything."

"Do you not like hurting women?" asked River.

He shrugged. "I've hurt plenty of women, on purpose and by accident. And I have no problem killing her, or hitting you. I don't want to, but that's just that soft belly I don't show."

"You didn't hit me much," said River. "Not after the bar, where I was trying to kill you. The worst you did in front of Zoe was grab me and hit Jayne—and she likes people who hit Jayne."

He chuckled. "Yeah? Anyway, the point is, this particular little girl, here, she's well and truly ready to do good. To be good. She's a happy, healthy person. We showed her what her bosses were up to, behind her back, and so she set out to do better. See that? That's special. Only one in a million people actually changes when they realize they've been doing bad things. One in a million! She only turned on us again when she thought we were complicit, that we were working with her bosses."

"You are," hissed Eva.

"Do I have to explain about the time machine again?" he huffed. "Anyway, so there's a misunderstanding there."

River was beginning to wonder if he really was crazy. "Time travel is scientifically impossible."

"Yeah? So's a lot of things I've seen, love. It doesn't stop them. Or even slow them down. It just makes them harder to notice. You know what's also impossible? Crazy-fu like you've got."

She laughed. "If the girl was time travel, then she'd be infinitely aware," she said, amused by the paradoxical nature of his ramblings.

He scowled at her. "Okay, that's more in line with the crazy theme. My point is, I'm not reaching warp ten around the sun or eighty-eight in a Delorean, love. I did something very, very stupid, and as a result, time and space as we know it all fell apart. I mean, if you had a lifetime to do stupid things, you could do a lot, right? Well, I had a lot more, and I managed to cram several lifetimes of stupid stuff in there. You know the stories they tell of Earth That Was? What if I tell you it was sort of my fault it all went boom?"

She stared at him, completely deadpan. "You really are crazier than me," she said finally.

He rolled his eyes. "And you wonder why I don't just tell people outright about Liam's little gift, Eva. Fine, then. I'm crazy. Liam's some kind of double agent working for everybody all at once. Good luck sussing out who he's really for; most people never get him. Me, I get him. It scares me, but I get him. I mean, unless he's really the bad guy and he's playing me. But, even then, I get him. Well. That's family, isn't it? Running around worrying that maybe they're the bad guy, trying to mop up the universe. It's a big universe to be responsible for, but there's nobody else out there putting themselves forward for the job. Maybe that's the problem; maybe we go from protecting it to ruling it. God, I wonder if there's another of me out there, running around doing… well, I suppose if I had a doppelganger he'd run around doing mindless acts of goodness and light, wouldn't he?"

The rambling diatribe served to reinforce River's impression that he was truly insane. "So, you're going to set an enemy loose and hope she does good?"

Eva turned her head, looking as if she might spit on Blood. "You're nothing more than a sidekick," she said, sneering.

He sighed. "I've been a glorified errand boy for a very long time; don't think you can get under my skin by pointing that out."

Eva wriggled slightly, raising her hands. "Don't bother trying to get any sense out of him; I tried for years, but then I realized that he's as crazy as he sounds. Liam will make more sense; he's less honest, but less crazy."

"Liam's not honest," scoffed Blood. "He never told you a lick of truth. I bet he never even told you about what really happened to your squad!"

Eva froze. "What do you mean?"

"You know how we turned that whole ambush around on your head? Back on that planet with the two suns? It all went wrong. We were there to kill each other, sure, but I never meant things to go that far. Since we knew about your ambush I was going to use gas, knock your lot out and sort things out decently. Liam thought that was too soft."

Eva shook her head. "I'd believe the other way around. You're an animal."

He shot to his feet. "Animal, am I? Who's keeping you alive here, love?"

"You're just trying to make me forget why I'm fighting you!" she snarled back. "Buy me back whole! I'm done listening to you!"

Blood sighed, rolling his head to one side. "And it's always like this," he complained. "My agenda was perfectly clear at the time. As was my conscience. In the addition of time all these variables float in and muck up a perfectly good plan. Look, I'll tell you flat-out, seducing me an` him both was your worst mistake."

River twitched slightly, another image of Blood naked flashing through her mind. Worse, Eva had all sorts of memories to go with the image—and while most of it had been a bit less pleasant since Eva was only doing it for the express purpose of setting him against his boss, it was pretty clear that it had been a memorable even for her. The memories were etched deeply in her brain.

Actually, memories of both of them.

River didn't have much experience at all in these matters, but her trips through other people's heads made it clear that this was not usually the case. That in general men like this didn't naturally come by skills such as those these two carried.

It made her knees a little bit weak. She tried to hide this from Blood, and backed another step away from him.

He was looking straight at Eva, still perturbed. "I know I'm a monster, well and truly. But you know as well as I do that Liam is a bit colder than me. And that's hard."

She shuddered, looking away from him. "I know," she said, her voice very small.

River wanted to know why this was so important to him. Why he had to break down Eva's defenses like this. It was all wrong, and strange. He ought to kill her or let her go; was there some method to his madness that she couldn't see?

So she left.

5.

Liam came looking for River after the rest of the crew had gone to sleep. With their current arrangements he was sleeping in the engine room, since there was nowhere else open currently.

That suited him just fine. It meant he was free to prowl the ship once everybody else was asleep, something he intended to take advantage of.

She was waiting for him in the galley, eating some of the food that had been left out. She'd skipped the main meal, as she didn't want to have to deal with the rest of the crew.

"Ah, there you are," he said, sitting down at the table. "I think we got off on the wrong footing, and I wanted a chance to talk to you. Without William around to muck things up."

"Or point out when you lie?" she asked, finishing her food quickly and swallowing it without chewing properly. Bad for digestion, but better to have her hands free in case it became necessary to punch him in the face a few dozen times.

He sighed. "Or that, I suppose, although I personally wouldn't trust him too far in saying where I'm lying. Given that he's a worse liar than me, most days. Most days. Anyway, I want you to know that despite what he's said, killing you wasn't my idea. Well, okay, when it did come up, I did bring it up, but that wasn't my original idea. I'm, in general, opposed to it. Well, yes, when we argued, it was him who took your side up. But, again, that's not how I operate, in general. I suppose that's not too clear."

She shook her head. These two, whatever their faults, could be very funny when they tried to be serious.

"All right, then, let me try one more time. I'm not likable, not like William. I'm not really what you would call good most of the time. But I am trying to fix my previous mistakes, and I don't lightly kill little girls. When we last saw you it looked like you were broken beyond all repair, and you had some dangerous secrets in your brain, as well as some really dangerous skills. It was very risky letting you go, and it did pay off—the two of us knew a little bit about Miranda, but not enough to bust it wide open the way you did. So, hey, all's well that ends well… You're going to have hard feelings about me wanting to kill you, aren't you?"

She thought about it briefly. On the other hand, most of the crew had, at one time or another, entertained the thought. Especially Jayne. "Maybe. Depends if you try to do it again."

He smiled. "There, you're pretty safe. I mean, unless you hurt William, then all bets are off."

"You two can hardly stand each other; how come you have each others' back?"

He shrugged. "Family, you know. No matter how you hate them…"

"You look nothing alike."

"Well, it's not exactly a blood family. More like… yeah, marriage, that's right. He sort of married the girl that… well, I was really with her at the time. It wasn't till a while later he got her well clear of me, and we eventually picked right back up where we left off. Still, family!"

That sounded vaguely unpleasant and gross to River. She tossed 'vilely promiscuous' to the long list of things wrong with their little family.

6.

Inara came to see Spike in the morning, before anybody else was out and about. She was still concerned over the safety of her secrets.

She was surprised to find him holding Eva, who appeared to have been crying. He glanced up at her in surprise when she came in the door.

"Oh, it's you," he said, dismissing her. She had to work to avoid grinding her teeth—something she didn't usually have to work at when Mal wasn't in the room. "Look, girl, I've known about your lot for a while—what goes on in there. Perfect cover for it, eh? Companions and all that. Your secret is safe with me—I haven't even told Liam."

"I doubt you understand the exact nature of what goes on there," she said. She was probing, trying to see exactly what he did think went on.

There was a needle up her left sleeve. If he knew too much, he would have to be dealt with—and quickly.

He sighed, carefully smoothing down Eva's hair. "Doesn't she look an innocent darling when she sleeps? You look innocent too, but I can practically smell the drugs on you. So many more than you could ever hope to use yourself… Love, if you want assurance I won't tell, then I can't help you beyond my word. If you can accept the word of a broken old soldier."

Inara stared at him, suddenly sad beyond words. The needle in her hand, and all that time she'd spent with Simon, seemed very cold. No amount of drugs could possibly take the weariness from her bones now. "I'm afraid broken old soldiers are the only ones I trust any more."

7.

River dreamed, that night.

A faraway world, and a whale in a tuxedo. She'd had this dream before.

Blood was there, eating the whale. "It's beautiful," he said, scowling at her. In his scowl she could see something vaguely wrong, something that should have warned her.

But she didn't understand it. "What are you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Something you've never seen or met before; a man you're afraid of. A man you can't scrub through his mind, pre-judge, and dispose of. Maybe I'm the man you've been waiting all your life for. And maybe I'm the man who could kill you."

She shivered, as vulnerable to his affection as to his killing hands. "I'm scared of you."

"`Course you are. You'd be crazy not to be. Me… I'm not scared of you."

She woke up sweating.


	5. Chapter 5

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 5

1.

River was now thoroughly freaked out.

She wandered through the ship like a ghost. Jayne was lifting weights alone in the cargo deck, and he didn't see her. The captain was still on the bridge, watching carefully. He didn't see her. Zoe was keeping guard over Blood's quarters. She did see River, and gave her a small smile.

Kaylee and Simon were in the engine room. River didn't go too close; she could feel what they were doing from a distance, and while at other times she might have been fascinated, right now it was a little too close to her own current feelings to be comfortable.

Liam and Blood's crew were in the medical room. She hated it in there, so she stayed away from there.

She found Liam in the kitchen still. He was cooking up a small meal, whistling quietly while he worked. "There you are," he said. "Do you know, I'm honestly a little bit worried about this whole plan now. Originally this was just a test of loyalty for your good captain, but now it seems we've burned this connection. I don't suppose you have any helpful insights?"

She thought about it. "I don't think I like you," she informed him.

He sighed. "Here I am, trying to good in this 'Verse, and she doesn't like me. You know, between me and William, I'm not sure who's the more conflicted, strange, morally unknowable monster. I mean, sure, I might be an insane double agent… or, worse, I might just be the biggest villain in this verse… but on the other hand, you know what? William's done way worse than that. He killed a whole solar system once. I'm pretty sure he started the last intergalactic war, although he denies it. What do you think of that?"

River frowned. "I'm not on his side; why are you trying to turn me against him?"

"I'm just saying. See, me, I'm a simple kind of guy. There's a bad guy out there, and I'm going to knock him on his tail. He's made a fool of me, and I'm going to make a fool of him. This is all easy math, right? William? Who can understand him. He's some kind of crusader who wants to kill everybody. More complicated, huh?"

River still didn't understand the purpose of this patter, this gnawing at her brain. He was trying to talk her into something, or out of something, but she couldn't tell what. She wasn't used to flying blind like this.

He gathered the food together, letting out a sigh and nodding to her. "You can try to sort us out as much as you please, I guess, but don't forget that at the end of the day William and I will kill anybody who gets in our way, or tries to break us apart. Here, could you take these to William?"

River stared at him. "You're making him food?"

"Well, he won't come out. And somebody has to do it," said Liam, shrugging uncomfortably. "He has special dietary needs that I'm just trying… look, just take it, okay?"

2.

Jayne didn't like it. True, they were down to two 'guests' who had weapons, and it was true enough they were mostly playing by the captain's rules.

But on the other hand… they seemed crazier than River, and he had a very low opinion of her sanity.

So he kept an eye on what was going on, staying alert. He wasn't a clever person—he knew that. He had no big words, no cunning strategies.

But in this, the business of staying alive? He knew the ways a man might doublecross you. He knew the ins and outs of getting behind a person, out of their sight, and putting a knife in them. He knew how to keep a man in your peripheral vision, shoot him without looking at him.

In short, he knew how to survive. In that business, he was without peer. Mal might laugh, but Jayne could almost smell it when somebody planned to turn on him.

So he was paying very close attention when River went to Blood's room.

Zoe was the one watching Blood, making sure he didn't come out. How she missed this development, Jayne wasn't entirely sure. Probably River was using some head mojo _thing_ against her, walking through other people's brains without permission.

Jayne would cheerfully go through somebody's room or possessions without their permission, but was dead-set against them going through his head without permission. That seemed entirely wrong.

Now he saw with very clear vision the progression. First, there was hitting and swearing. Then, there was confrontations. Now there was dewy-eyed visits in the middle of the night.

He felt a terrible panic coming onto him. This was a dangerous and foreign territory, but he knew what was in the air.It was _romance,_ the worst possible outcome. His heart hammered in his chest, and he knew he had to intervene somehow.

He began plotting. He knew strategizing was a weak spot, but he couldn't go to anybody else for help except the doc, and in this case the doc would think he was crazy. Just plain out of his mind.

3.

For a second River was distracted as she entered the tiny room. Distracted by Jayne, and his sudden plans to lure her into one of the shuttles, knock her out, lock her there, and keep her there until he'd had a chance to kill Blood.

Plainly, he was suffering some sort of delusion if he thought that plan would work.

He was working on other strategies too, and River made a mental note to try to beat some sense into him later. "I brought you food," she said.

Blood was hanging upside down from the ceiling, his legs wrapped around the metal girder that held the light up. He gazed at her with an unsettlingly calm look, glancing down to Eva, who had cleaned herself up and was calmly cleaning her fingernails with another knife. "I suppose she might be hungry," he said, just a bit skeptically.

"Liam made it," said River.

Blood's face lit up. "I thought he'd forgotten," he said, swinging himself over and landing gracefully on his feet, like a giant panther in the middle of a hunt. She had forgotten how he moved, how much danger was there.

"You two are so awfully fast to come to each other's aid," she murmured, watching the way his hips moved as he grabbed the knife out of Eva's hand.

Blood snorted. "I suppose. Family, you know. Anyway, here's the important part; I think Eva and I have come to some terms."

Eva shook her head. "You talked me out of killing you; that's not the same thing!" she snarled.

He shrugged. "It comes out about the same to me. You're going to go your way, we'll go ours, and I expect you to do great things—mind, I think you're starting out a bit ambitious. Still, as career goals go, it's not bad."

River glanced at Eva, who was thinking dark thoughts about turning the galaxy upside down in her quest, ending an age-old evil and restoring some sort of balance.

It occurred to River that this was exactly the outcome Blood had desired most, and she had no idea why.

"Why do you care so much for the galaxy?" she asked him. "You don't even care for people that much."

He shrugged. "Habit? No love lost between me and the bad people? Of course, that used to be more personal. Some of them had personally killed folks I loved and cared for. Now it's just that they're somewhat like people who once killed somebody who mattered to me. It's all very confusing, and I try not to think too hard about it. The last thing I want to do is talk myself out of being the big hero I never wanted to be in the first place."

4.

He woke up alone and sweating, tied to a chair. The bonds were cold iron, something capable of holding him, and he screamed in pain when the first bits of feeling came back to him.

A light flickered on, his yell having awoken some electronic sensor. A dirty monitor was facing him, blank and blue. After a second a face appeared on it.

A terribly familiar face.

"Good morning, Ian," said the face, so pleasantly it made him want to cry.

"Monster," he whispered.

"Don't struggle or fight too hard. We've found him—the one you want to kill so badly."

He could taste salt on his lips, and wasn't sure if it was tears or blood. "The one who destroyed it all," he hissed.

"Yes, Ian. The one who destroyed your pretty handiwork and ruined the last bits of Miranda. The one who we put a little bit of you into."

He smiled, then. They had never understood him, or the many different parts of him. Trying to use his unique mental gifts to enhance another person—trying to copy the way his brain worked—was a recipe for disaster.

"We have evidence she's working with the Other, Ian."

Ian's face fell. For one terrible second he wasn't sure who he was, and he wasn't sure where he was, or why he was. He wasn't sure of anything at all except on terrible thing.

He hated the Other with a passion unmatched by any passion the Bard had ever spoken of.

"Let me go," he hissed. "I'll burn him from this world."

5.

After that day, Blood and Eva wandered the ship freely. They didn't try to kill anybody, and nobody tried to kill them.

It was worrisome, concluded River. Watching enemies walk side by side like that, always together, was enough unsettle you. Remembering that they did it because the big man who prowled the ship silently might try to kill one of them (or maybe both) was even worse.

That night she caught the three of them together in the galley. It was tense, and Blood wasn't saying much, just watching, while Eva and Liam glared and spat like alley cats.

Well, no actual spitting. But a fair amount of yowling.

"No matter what he says, I'll never trust you," she said.

"He's a fool to trust you," replied Liam.

They stopped when she came into the room and sat down, watching them both closely. Blood smirked at her. "Come like a little anthropologist to see our little monkeys fighting?" he asked, his voice all sarcasm and sharp edges, sharp enough to cut her if she got too close.

She looked at him, into those eyes, and she could feel an edge of emotion. It was more than she normally got from his mind, that empty mirror she couldn't touch. It was happiness. Seeing them both getting on, keeping them both alive, made him happy.

Even though neither would thank him. Even through the hatred that poured off both, the mistrust. He was happiest doing this, keeping them safe and alive.

It amazed her. It was at terrible odds with what he looked like, with the way he liked to kill, to maim. He was no hero; he wanted the world to know he was a monster.

But he acted like a hero.

She shook her head at him. "And you wonder why I can't unravel you all at," she said ruefully.

He shrugged. "Be happier if you didn't."

Liam made a face. "William. Please, please, keep your distance from this little girl."

Eva shook her head. "He's already in her pocket—or didn't you notice that?" There was a sneer there for Liam, but a slight jealous edge too. "He's always had a soft spot for people who're broken a little bit."

Blood shot her a look that was both patient and fatherly. Given their relationship up till this point, it was entirely inappropriate. "You'd know, wouldn't you?" he asked pointedly.

She flushed. "I suppose." She focused on her food.

Liam sighed. "I have had it up to here with crazy girls and ex-military types. I mean, I've known lots of crazy girls—nursed them back to sanity, that sort of thing." Eva gave him a disbelieving look. "I have! Sometimes I'm the big hero who shows up and drags the girl out of a terrible situation and… and into an unwinnable battle where she'll certainly be killed, and her body used for terrible things."

Blood shuddered. He waved his index finger in Eva's face. "See you don't get killed; he isn't the only one who's suckered too many girls into this fight. What kind of man lets a little girl fight for him? Only the very worst." He glared at River. "And don't forget that. For anything."

6.

Later, when they had all gone to bed, River sat there and wondered why she felt so terribly melancholy.

It was Blood, of course. She couldn't get out of his mind. He was remembering, and she knew that every good memory he had was of somebody dead.

She could see a blonde girl in her mind's eye, one so strong, so free, so powerful… dead. Twice.

She could see a brunette, a girl of death and blood and violence, one so terrible and beautiful it took her breath away. Dead; and at his hands.

She could see another girl, this one tiny, and vulnerable, and full of her own special madness. Then she was gone, replaced by a terrible blue woman that he loved dearly, until she too was gone.

The faces continued to fly by, and River wondered how one man could have so much pain hidden within him. So many dead behind him. So many women that he had loved.

Jayne walked in the room, clearing his throat. He had his hands together in front of himself, twisting them together with worry over this latest, most elaborate plan he had put together.

She sighed. "Attempting to seduce me in your clumsy manner won't help keep me away from Blood. Depending which of your few and terrifying techniques you choose, it might make whatever is coming occur faster."

He threw his hands up in there. "It was just a thought!" he muttered, sitting down. He looked completely out of sorts. "I wasn't exactly looking forward to it either," he said, looking anywhere but at her.

It was somewhat endearing that he felt the need to protect her, even if it was frustrating that he was so wrong about Blood and wasn't even bothering to try to correct his misconceptions. River was trying very hard to figure him out properly. She wanted all of them to do the same.

He sighed. "I ain't altogether sure I gotta do anything, but I'll be damned if'n mama Cobb wouldn't yell at me for lettin` you go off with a man like that." He rubbed his eyes. The amount of conflict within him over this matter was more than a little comical to River, and she leaned over and petted his head graciously.

"You need not worry; she can take care of herself," she assured him.

He glowered at her. "And don't think it ain't occurred to me to try telling your brother what you're up to," he growled.

In his mind, she could see, Blood was the very worst possible thing. Worse, Jayne knew he could tell nobody, so he was determined to find some solution.

"Simon would never believe," she says. "Or the captain, or Zoe. None of them. Why so sad? It's not like one being dangerous could stop you from setting out to indulge your animal side."

"Yeah, but… but I know I can handle myself, and I know if'n I can't, the one in trouble is me!" he said, and he was getting angrier. He didn't want to say out loud that he didn't want her hurt, and he didn't want to admit out loud that it would make him very angry to see her cry.

She sighed. "Strange, strange man-beast Jayne. When did I become family to you?"

He scowled at her. "There's a question I'll be asking myself," he muttered. "Be careful, you hear? A man like that… don't turn your back on him for one second, is what I'm saying."

She laughed, bounding to her feet, standing on the table and looking down at him. "Is that almost approval? My Jayne, approving?"

He made a huffing sound. "I suppose I can't control who you take in your bed… but, gorramit, keep your head on!"

7.

Simon retreated to his room. He hadn't heard all the conversation in the galley, just enough to get a picture in his head of what was going on.

River was sleeping with Jayne.

He'd seen them make physical contact, heard her call him 'my Jayne,' and that line about 'one being dangerous never stopped him from'—no! Simon couldn't even think those words. 'Indulge his animal side'? Was that his sweet little sister saying that to the brute?

Simon gagged a little bit, then pulled himself together. She was old enough to sleep with whoever she pleased, of course. He knew that. In the front of his brain, the logical part.

He couldn't make himself feel any better about it, though.

8.

Blood watched Eva sleep, and listened to the little crazy girl sneaking into the room, and wondered how this would end. Not well, he knew from experience.

Never well.

She came in and smiled at him. He'd seen the little gleam in her eyes, and he knew what it meant when a girl stared a bit too long. A bit too hard. He could see, too, that this was a new dance to her, that he could hurt her terribly.

It made him a little bit afraid. He'd been with so many girls, and doomed so many. What right did he have to take a chance with her? What right did he have to make things worse here? None at all.

He smiled back at her, already afraid he was going to destroy her, and even more afraid that she would destroy him. He knew this was all wrong. He knew he needed to keep his distance.

But she had a sweet little smile, and she needed his help, and she had eyes a man could drown in… so when she leaned close and kissed him, lightly and gently and with so much hesitation, he kissed her back, reaching up and putting a hand on her arm.

He kissed her there, in the dark, until she was out of breath and broke free with a little gasp. He held her arm, closing his eyes.

"You know a little bit about me, but there's so much you don't," he whispered. "Terrible things that would horrify even you."

"Doubtful," she whispered. "I've been in the Reavers, touched them where the madness lies…"

"I have more in common with them than you," he whispered, hating that simple truth. "Look at me, love. I'm not a man, not truly. I'm a monster; a thing from the shadows that has always preyed on little girls especially."

And she was looking at him, but she saw so much more deeply than he could ever be comfortable with. She could see the first little girl who had warmed his cold, dead heart. The first little girl who had been his friend when he had been broken-hearted. She saw that he had tried so very hard to change, to be good.

And they kissed again, and she shivered, and he drew her into his arms, and prayed to a God he sometimes thought hated him that he could somehow avoided screwing up; that if he allowed this little girl to warm his heart, to bring some life back into a life that had long been cold, and distant, and all about this fight, that it would not burn the life out of him.

Because he knew that this girl could do that without even trying very hard.


	6. Chapter 6

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 6

1.

Most of the ship was blissfully unaware when River snuck back out of Blood's room to her own in the hours before everybody woke up.

Jayne wished he was just as blind as them.

He knew it was more than natural. A person River's age was growing—learning. And she was a little behind her actual age.

But he'd be damned if he didn't feel more than a little freaked out about it. And that just made him feel even more uncomfortable. He was not some soft little girl who worried about her friends' feelings and worried about what kind of romantical connections might be formed under his nose. He was not going to indulge in girl talk or protect the girl's damn honor.

But he had a nagging voice in his ear reminding him that even if he didn't like the crazy girl, she'd saved his life. Reminding him that he'd given her a knife—a better present than he'd ever given any woman in this `Verse.

Reminding him that even if she wasn't no sister of his by blood, he was already treating her just as good as he ever treated them.

He wasn't sure why. Maybe because she acted like an equal. Maybe because after Miranda his fear of her had turned to—maybe, just maybe!—any itty-bitty smidge of respect. Or maybe it was just because she never did kill him.

Whatever the reason, and despite their surreal conversation the night before, he still started making plans to find a way to space Blood. Because when it came to dangerous killer men, he liked to think he was the very baddest of them all.

2.

Liam found Mal on the bridge and sat down in the co-pilot's seat, smiling pleasantly at the captain. "Can you feel that miasma in the air?" he asked, keeping his tone conversational.

"Beg pardon?" said Mal, confused. He squinted at the big man.

"I think you know just what kind of obsessions I carry. Things that get in the way of those obsessions are dangerous. Obstacles to be taken down. Normally, William's in my back pocket. The little tool that always comes through. Today? Today there's a problem with that. Today I have a problem. I think you do too. I think we may need to team up one last time before we part ways and hope to God never to see each other again."

Mal sighed. "And why's that?"

"Because your little psychic slept with my deranged killer last night," he replied, matter of fact.

Mal nearly choked in that second. "She what?" he snarled, already reaching for his gun out of instinct.

He knew she was growing up, gorramit. He'd tried to prepare himself for this day, tried to consider how she would feel about it. He even had a niggling suspicion in the back of his head that the growing respect and near-friendship between her and his surly mercenary might lead to a worst-case scenario that would be something out of his nightmares, and he was trying to prepare himself for that possibility!

But not this. Not with a stone-cold killer with a bloodlust that made Jayne look like a cool, calculating, considering person.

Liam grinned. "Nasty little surprise, eh? He's always had a weakness for girls with a lot of power and a lot of problems. And I imagine she has all sorts of her own reasons that I just don't care about. Now, before you go all reactionary on me, let me assure you, I've seen her, and I would describe her current mood as 'a-glow,' rather than, say, whatever you were thinking. That in mind, it's going to be even harder to bust up this terribly complicated little mess."

Mal groaned, putting his hands over his eyes. "All that, and I think we're being followed," he muttered.

Liam leaned over the controls. "That little ghost of a speck following us? Huh. That's not so good. I guess we ought to do something a bit fishy about that. Anyway, here's my plan."

3.

Blood began setting up his equipment in the cargo bay, taking precious bits and pieces from his various luggage containers. When he'd boarded, weeks ago, River remembered thinking he had a lot of luggage for a man who looked like he wanted to travel light.

She hadn't thought of the possible uses he had for all that luggage.

"We can mine our tracks," he said to Liam, who was similarly occupied. "Nasty surprises all over."

"No; they're far enough back they must have an advanced scanning array. We won't be tricking one of those," said Liam. "Just put together the cannon, so we can at least get some cover if they get in too close."

Blood smiled wistfully. "Nicer words I've never heard from you."

Liam sighed. "Anything you want to talk about?"

Blood glared at him. "I been feelin` all sorts of nasty psychic vibrations from you all morning," he declared. "If you don't already know for certain, you guessed. You know what kind of man I am; never quite fully in control of myself, no matter what I say to other folks. What is it she used to say? Want, take, have? Practically an animal, right? So don't act surprised!"

Liam glanced over to River. "I tried to warn her before, you know," he muttered. "Get her away from you. God, Willy! Do you have any idea what a mess this is?"

"Got a fair idea," muttered Blood. "I remember. What happened." He was having trouble forming complete sentences, and kept glancing at River from under his eyelashes, quick, furtive glances. "Anyway, last time has nothing to do with this. This is… you get in the middle of this, Liam, and I swear I'll hurt you!"

Liam laughed. "You mean you'll try," he said dangerously. "Have you forgotten the stakes, Willy? We don't have time for a little schoolyard romance for you! Not hanging on the edge of the Universe trying to find me!"

Blood scowled, kicking over the half-assembled cannon in front of him. "That's your mission, anyway. I'm here for, for puppies, and Christmas, and all that's good in this world. But especially for lost little girls who need a little help! Do you know how lost I've been, walking on your mission? How long it's been since I really remembered why I do this? I've been wandering blind through your world, just taking it all on faith and remembrances of old, just trying to find that old familiar rhythm; but here's a girl who's all that I've lost, and all I ever wanted. You would try to talk me out of that! You would try to make me something I'm not! Ever wonder just what is wrong with this world, Liam? It's you!"

Liam's face was stony. "That's it, is it? All this time together, lost to us?"

"It's gone, prat!" screamed Blood.

Liam grabbed Blood by the collar, punching him in the face with such force that it drove him down to his knees. "You do not talk like that to me!" he seethed, keeping his hand on Blood's shoulder, holding him down. "I haven't forgotten how stupid you can be—have you?"

Blood laughed gleefully.

River could have already taken Liam's head off with a single swing of the knife she had clutched in her hand, behind her back. She was frozen, afraid of the terrible truths contained in their words. The only wounds these two could inflict on each other now were words, words that carried such old hurts that it tore and cut at their insides.

Liam leaned down. "Are you going soft on me, old man?" he asked, his voice pitched low. "After all this time, and all these battles? Don't do this to me, Willy. I can't go on alone. Not after all this!"

Blood grabbed hold of Liam's wrists, standing back up and tossing him back easily. "You great big ponce! You think this universe revolves around you?"

River had decided on a course of action. She spoke quickly, before she could change her mind. "You both can't have what you want; you're a snake, eating its own tail. And because you're family you've chewed away for so many years… but there is an end in sight, and it's not a good one."

They both gave her puzzled looks, then continued their argument as if she hadn't spoken. Liam stuck his finger in Blood's face. "You know this fight is bigger than both of us!"

Blood shook his head. "And smaller, so much smaller. It's a futile battle, and we both know it. Just… just let me alone! You know I've been your strong right arm as long as we both can remember. You know I've never let you down the way you let me down."

Liam grabbed his arm. "The time machine doesn't exist! If we fix this, it'll never happen again. If we fix this…"

"It can't be fixed, Liam! It can't!" yelled Blood. His shouts brought Zoe into the cargo area, hand on her gun. She still wasn't far from wherever they were, at any given second. She was too aware of the threat they posed.

Liam ignored her. "I can fix it; you know I can fix it."

Zoe was confused, but as long as they were hitting each other and not any of her crew, it was an amused confusion. As opposed to one full of shooting and violence.

River watched them argue a little while longer, then wandered off, wondering why Mal thought it was necessary to kill Blood and Liam.

When the answer came, it amused and angered her.

4.

Ian was better than anybody else in the `Verse at finding things. He'd once tracked the Other across four galaxies just by walking through the planets listening for somebody who had once seen the Other. It was hard, since the Other saw so few people face to face.

But not impossible.

Ian's mind was wide open now as he walked around the dusty streets of a distant planet. Nobody was alive in town for his mind to Read; after all, he'd already killed everybody here.

Still, there was a faint taste of the Other's presence, still lingering.

He bit down on his lower lip, trying to pinpoint it. He couldn't keep any of the pain and suffering out of his head, but these days he was coming to enjoy that. To enjoy wallowing in the suffering of others.

Ian wasn't entirely sure, these days, just how much of what was in his head was his own, and how much was a mish-mash of the Other. Even being this close to him brought out so much of the Wolf that it was hard to think.

He found a direction. He found a glimpse of another strong psychic presence.

And William, dear sweet William. Ian smiled fondly. William was his favorite person in the whole wide world.

5.

Simon found the captain on the bridge and sat down beside him gingerly. "I need to talk to you," he said.

"Been meaning to have a conversation myself," replied the captain. His voice was taut.

Simon winced. "Are you aware of what's happening with River…?"

"More'n aware, thanks."

Simon sighed. "What a disaster."

"I could just kill him," said the captain. It was a hopeful suggestion, hoping for support from the doctor.

Simon nodded. "I thought about it. I thought about it long and hard. I mean, I wanted to. But, then again… she's an adult now, even if a bit … disadvantaged. And while she's a little bit behind in social skills, she can read minds. And we know what the Alliance put in her for fighting abilities. She's better than anybody else… and if that's what she wants, and we try to stop her, and she can see us coming…?"

Mal sighed. "You talk a lick of sense, doc."

"I don't like it, but that's how it is," said Simon, fatalistically. He leaned back in the seat. "I don't want to seem like I approve, but I guess I can't kill him. Anyway, I thought you and I ought to be on the same wavelength on this."

"We surely ought to," replied Mal. He was more than a little relieved that Simon knew, and intensely grateful he hadn't needed to explain it all to him. That would have been a terrible conversation.

Simon, for his part, was glad that the captain was going to see sense about this. He had been worried.

Simon left the bridge. Neither of them had any inkling that he was terribly misconstruing the situation.

6.

Simon went straight to the cargo bay, where Jayne was working out. He was determined to have a straight, man-to-man conversation with… with that savage, brutal animal that he hated so badly and who was sleeping with his sister.

Simon was suddenly glad that he didn't have a gun, and that if he did, he probably would have missed anyway. Because it would have been terribly hard to explain to River exactly why he had shot Jayne in the back of the head.

He approached Jayne, clearing his throat. Jayne was picking heavy things up and putting them back down, and he scowled at Simon. "What do you want?" he asked.

Simon took a deep breath. "I want you to know that I know what's going on with River."

Jayne blinked a few times. "Uh…"

"Don't try to… I heard you speaking to her. Last night. And I… I want you to know that I'm not… I'm not angry with you, exactly. Just concerned for her."

Jayne was pretty sure the doc was right to be concerned—but just why would he have had any right to be angry? "Hey, doc, it's not exactly my fault… I did my best to stop her!"

Simon's face turned red. "What are you saying? Are you saying my sister … my sister set out to seduce… are you…"

"Whoa, whoa, I'm not calling your sister any kind of loose," said Jayne quickly. Normally he'd have been happy to wind the doc up, but the crazy girl knew if you insulted her inside the safety of your own head. There was no way he was going to call her loose to her brother's face. She could still be pretty scary. "I'm just saying that I don't think there's any way I could have stopped this."

Simon gritted his teeth. "All right. Fair enough. I don't want to hear the details. What I'm saying is that I think you and I ought to be civil about this."

Jayne thought about that for a minute. "I don't follow."

"I mean… I mean I want what's best for my sister."

Jayne perked up immediately. He assumed that Simon meant he wanted to kill Blood. "You're talking about, like, protecting her. I respect that, doc, I surely do."

Simon wilted a little bit. Jayne's appreciate for that concern for his sister made him consider the mercenary in a new light, and he wasn't sure he liked it. "Yes. I'm glad we're… just try to make sure she doesn't get hurt, yes?"

Jayne nodded vigorously, wondering if Simon had any idea how mad River was going to get when she found out he wanted to kill Blood. "I'll do my level best," he said seriously.

He was glad when Simon went away. He hadn't realized Simon understood that he thought of River as, well, a crewmate, at the least. Or that Simon was canny enough to recognize that the two of them could ally against Blood and kill him.

Yes, his estimation of Simon had just gone way up.

7.

River didn't exactly _want_ to have this conversation with Simon; but the way she saw it, if he kept running around making terribly icky presumptions about her and Jayne, he was going to get the entire ship confused.

That wouldn't do.

So she approached him in his room, carefully flexing her fingers. This was going to be a messy time, she could tell. Shouldn't a psychic know the exact right things to say? Shouldn't a psychic see what path would get her through this without hurting him?

But all she could see was images of Jayne in his head, Jayne holding her, sexing her up in that crude, ruffian way—actually, the mental images were more than a little distracting. And at least one of them was a little hot, which disturbed her on more than one level.

So she jumped right in. "I'm not sleeping with Jayne."

Relief flooded him. "Oh, _mei mei!_ I mean, not that it wouldn't be okay if you wanted…"

"I'm sleeping with Blood."

Simon's face flushed red, and he sat down very quickly and hard. She hoped tearing the bandaid off very fast was the best way, here. Wacky fun was all well and good, but she knew he wasn't anywhere near ready for this.

She knelt beside him. "You know, ever since you rescued me, you've been there for me and protected me. But eventually little girls grow up, Simon, and you can't protect them from themselves."

"I know," he groaned miserably.

"You know up here," she said, tapping her temple. "Take it right to the aorta, right to the marrow. Don't just know it; feel it. Can you do that for me, Simon?"

He smiled wanly. "Of course."

But his brain said no.

She sighed and slapped the back of his head gently. "Such a liar."

8.

Liam and Blood were finally alone in the cargo bay, assembling weapons. Liam glanced back the way Eva had wandered off. "Anybody close by?"

"You tell me, wanker," muttered Blood.

"Your senses have been a little sharper than mine for a while," said Liam. "Ever since I got infected with that virus. Look, can I speak freely, or not?"

"Go ahead."

"It's not fair to her. She has no idea what world you're from—the reason she can't read our minds. You're a monster. A demon. Do you think she has any clue about that? Do you think maybe she deserves something a little better than that?"

Blood sighed. "Sanctimonious prat. I have dropped hints, tried to let her know I'm not some lily-white hero like she thinks."

"You're a vampire, Willy. A beast who preys on humans and feeds from their flesh. A blood-sucking monster. Don't sugar-coat."

"And you thought the time machine story didn't go down very well? Monsters don't exist any more, Liam. You and me, we saw to that. Took a whole planet down, but we saw to that. Destroyed any vestiges of them. Folks don't believe anymore. How do you break through that?"

Liam touched his face. "It's been a long time, but I think if you show her what you are, she'll believe you. As simple as that. She's faced Reavers, after all. How much worse could you be?"

"I don't want to scare her."

"That's precisely the problem, Willy! You don't want to show her the truth because you know it'll crash down this little fantasy you have. This white picket fence world you always long for."

Blood looked around the cargo bay, sneering. "Doesn't look like any kind of Paradise to me."

"It's a family, Willy! The very thing you've always longed for. Don't look at me and deny it. That's why you stayed in Sunnydale for so long, kept going back. You lost the family we had, the four of us, and you went back there, to that bright and shining family. Even when you hated them, you hated them from jealousy more than anything else. When you were pushed out of there, you came back to me. Now you see this family, all together, one united front, and you want it. It's not yours! It never was! The sooner you get it together and see that, the better!"

Blood sighed. "I know. I mean, not that you're right or anything. But I know. I know that you're worse than me when it comes to family, and you're worse than me when it comes to obsessions. But the worst part… you're worse than me when it comes to wanting a family. You gather them to you. Think I haven't noticed the dry spell you've been having in that department since we found out the truth about the time machine and Wolfram and Hart?"

Liam grunted. "I thought you understood…"

"That you keep me around because I'm the only one who has a chance of stopping you if you really are going to turn into a bad guy? Or already are the bad guy?"

Liam sighed. "I trust myself. I do! I don't trust whatever part of myself is out there. I don't trust the duality of my nature."

"That's the nature of man, twit. Good and evil, conveniently wrapped. Forget that, and you forget what makes us all the same—even murderous monsters like us."

Liam's smile was strained. "Aside from the nature of man and my own dual nature… I thought you understood that this mission is more important than either of us. We have to finish it! If we leave this one alone… then all the false prophecy, all the real prophecy, all of it leads to one place. To me. In the End of Days."

"Didn't we already reach that when we destroyed the planet Earth?"

"Probably not. End of Days is the big one, William. We aren't there yet. But if it comes around and the Other is there, how do you think it'll go down? It'll all end in blood and ashes. We have to finish him before you can retire in any way."

Blood snarled wordlessly, turning and striding to the airlock, looking out into the Black. For a long minute he just stared, communing with nothingness. When he did speak, his voice carried the full weight of all his centuries, a weariness that chilled Liam. "You know, I still remember my mother," he said, his voice just a whisper. "After all these years, I wonder; did she make it to heaven? Does she look down? Is she proud of me? All the ones that've died… do they watch me? And have I failed them all? I out-lasted them, only to discover that I'm the cause of my own problems…. Me and you."

Liam nodded. "We're nearing the end. A Blade, William! We took down a Blade! A blow of that size, plus a blow against a Core planet… we can win this war yet!"

Blood sighed. "And lose out on all the most important things. You know I'm a fatalist, most days."

"That little girl is being hunted by the damn Alliance!" snarled Liam. "You know it, and I know it! Can she ever get free of those demons unless you kill them? Unless you once and for all destroy every single one of them?"

"Careful," said Blood. "A bit more ranting and I'll forget you're just saying that to wind me up. Anyway, if whoever's following us has a jack into the Alliance HiveMind database, I'll see if I can't jack in using your plugs." He tapped a finger thoughtfully against his chin. "Or my own, for that matter. If there's another you, there's another me. Right?"

"I don't know."

"Anyway, if I can jack in, we can find out what they know. And where we can strike. And possibly how."

Liam smiled grimly. "That's more like you, Willy. Go for the jugular; revel in your strength. Destroy."

Blood grinned, a wild, feral grin. "I am all about the destruction, aren't I?"


	7. Chapter 7

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 7

1.

Nero had been following the Firefly since the Operative had insisted on a face to face battle with them. He wasn't exactly sure why she wanted to do something so very stupid—was it just her own ghosts, haunting her? Was there a reason for it?

He'd known it would end badly. He always knew what would happen, before it happened. But he could never stop the bad things from happening. He wondered if this was some kind of curse, or if maybe he just needed to learn some fighting trick to make things like this stop happening.

He knew they'd pick his signature up eventually, realize that he was following them. Even a crazy ghost-stepper like himself couldn't be careful enough if they really were as good as she kept telling him they were.

Of course, he didn't work for her. If he had, he would have had to follow her into that crazy ambush. He was really, really glad he didn't work for her.

He noticed they were slowing down a little bit after that, and knew they were onto him. He knew in a minute they'd make a lightning quick turn, and no matter how he tried to run and hide, they'd be on him. He knew they had a faster ship with better acceleration. He knew they weren't supposed to be armed, but was willing to bet they could outgun him anyway.

So he sighed, and began maneuvering the ship around to make it look like he was making a run for it. He wouldn't bother burning all the fuel. He carefully unloaded his sidearm; he had no intention of trying to fight too hard, when all that could get him was shot.

He didn't like the idea of being shot.

2.

"He's not running," said River.

"Beg to differ," said Mal. "When they start moving away from you in a mighty hurry like that, it's called running."

"He's making a show of it," insisted River. "But he knows we can catch him, and he's not trying very hard. He won't resist at all."

Mal didn't like that attitude at all. He tapped the intercom. "We're closing positions nicely, and they aren't coming around to shoot," he said. He didn't trust people who let you catch them. "Stand ready with those guns."

Blood and Liam were in the airlock, suited up. It wasn't an ideal gunning station, but from there they could easily start firing. And with some of the big guns they'd brought, they could bring down a spaceship.

It didn't make him feel all warm and fuzzy at all.

River kept them behind and above the other ship as they approached, opposite its guns. She tapped the radio once to turn it on. "You've already surrendered," she said. "Just open your airlock and we'll make it official."

The airlock on the other ship slid open.

Eva, standing behind Mal, groaned. "It must be that useless weasel Nero. He's the liaison they assigned me from the military—some kind of spy. I don't know who he's working for. I thought he stopped following me a week ago, when I told him I was going to try to ambush Liam and Blood."

"How did you know where to find them?" asked Mal, suddenly curious.

Eva shrugged. "Turned one of their men to my side with money, of course. How else do you get ahead of men like that?"

"Which one?" asked Mal.

She shook her head. "I told Blood, and that's bad enough. Now pay attention; his ship is wired with some weapons, and not just the visible ones."

"He won't use them," said River. "Too smart. He shoots at us, Blood depressurizes his ship, he wears a space suit, he blows one of our engines, and Liam flies across in a spacesuit, gets in his ship, and kills him. Painfully, probably. He knows what'll happen. He's not putting any fight into it. He's hoping to get out alive, still."

Eva shook her head. "If he sees William we have to kill him," she said seriously. "Or Liam."

River could read the Operative's mind easily. She was worried about his reaction, worried for these men—and worried what they would do. She wasn't sure whether she loved them or hated them. She was confused.

River tried to put that confusion out of her mind. "We have him."

3.

Nero tried to keep his nerves under control. Sure, he could see Liam, the Angel, the killer, the Scourge, standing right there. And William Blood, his friend, partner, and the only man in the `Verse as crazy as him.

Sure, they were crazy. Sure, they were like shadows, things that stayed hidden in the dark so nobody but those at the highest levels knew about them.

But it was nerve-wracking, at this distance. He could smell the cheap soap Blood preferred. He could hear the leather in Liam's jacket creaking as he walked in circles around Nero.

"I haven't reported in since we left New Bellasaurus," he said, blurting out everything he knew. "But I think that they sent… uh, the specialist. After you."

Blood glanced back to Eva, the Operative, who was standing there calmly, not saying anything. Nero had been pretty sure she would tear these men apart. That they had talked her down was chilling.

Not as chilling as the thought of that Specialist.

Blood moved closer. "When you say a specialist…" he said, very slowly. His tone very reasonable.

Nero winced. "Yeah, I think they were talking about the guy who blew up that solar system that one time."

Blood didn't bother sighing dramatically, or gesticulating, or anything else to draw attention to himself. He didn't whine, scream, or anything else. His eyes slid sideways to Liam, who met his gaze. Both of them nodded.

Eva tilted her head. "Who?"

Nero wondered if he was going to die now. "He's… well, he's a psychic. And a monster."

"Only half a monster," murmured Blood. "Set a course for the nearest planet?"

"I'd like an army behind me for this," muttered Liam. They were both closer to Ian, with their backs to the others in the cargo bay, so none of them could hear the muttered plans. "But I guess we'll have it out somewhere. Couldn't we run and hide?"

"Not if he's learned how to use those neat tricks you taught him," grumbled Blood. "Of course, if we can take your bastard child down, then we might be able to figure out once and for all if the Other carries your, heh, curse."

Liam sighed. "Our curse."

"I meant the other one, but that one too."

"Other…? Oh, right."

Nero kept his face blank. He had no idea what they were going on about, but he knew that he was probably going to die. He could see it on the Operative's face. She knew he reported up the food chain quite a ways, knew he wasn't insignificant. She knew he was dangerous if left alive, because of the report he would file.

He smiled sickly. Only one way out of the mess now… "I can tell you what I know about him," he said pleasantly.

They all stared at him for a long, frigid minute. "Can you, now?" asked Blood, almost conversationally.

"I read the file on him. The weaponization of his talents, the low-grade virus they injected him with… the one that gives him superhuman abilities."

Blood closes his eyes very slowly, keeping them closed. "I know the one," he said, smiling as if at a pleasant thought. "Refined from the glands of some of the worst monsters left in the `Verse." He opened his eyes, glancing to Liam. "Question answered. Your double is your double—no doubt. That's the only way they'd have access to the stuff they'd need to make him into a half—half something like us."

Ian licked his lips. "That's not all. He's got, he's armed with some weapons that are still new. Laser weapons. Plasma weapons. Hot off the science pipeline."

Blood squeezed his lips together. "Don't matter. Tell me about the other…"

"Other what?" asked Ian.

Blood leaned forward. "Don't try that act with me, boy. You don't answer to the Operative, and you and I both know that's a pretty high-ranking Operative. You don't answer to the military. You aren't a merc. And you've got too much good sense to get killed here. And, last but not least, you know our boy Ian. Ian, destroyer of worlds, damn know-it-all, and the only weapon the Alliance has they're afraid to use. Tell me… what does the Other call Liam?"

Nero shifted in his seat and considered his options carefully. Cross his boss, and he was as good as dead. Cross these people, and he was as good as dead.

"I report to a man called Tomas Durns," he said softly. "You might know the name."

Blood smiled wide, showing his teeth. "Tommy, the dearest, best little man in the whole wide universe? Or Tommy, the dear little bastard who tried to take my heart out of my chest once?"

Nero's eyes narrowed. "What? Tomas. There's only one I know of."

"Yeah, but there's a lot of difference between the two. You report to him? And you've never met his superior?"

"N-no."

He glanced back at the wisp of a girl standing in the doorway. "Love, can you tell me just what he's not telling me?"

"He saw Liam," she said. "In a meeting with Tommy. Only it wasn't Liam, and he was nice. Very nice. And Tommy was nice. They were all very nice. And he knows they aren't always nice, but they're nice for him. And then they killed some people they didn't like, and ate them, he's pretty sure."

Nero winced. "Oh, a `path," he said, affecting a disinterested air. He was buggered, and he knew it. Any second now she'd find the important things in his brain…

"He knows you two aren't human," she said, staring at Blood. "Just monsters."

Mal's gun was in his hand and pointed at a point directly between Liam and Blood. "Could you repeat that just one time?" he said.

Liam glanced around. Zoe and Jayne, standing up in the stairs, on the catwalks, had locked them into a crossfire. Both of them had hands on guns too. River was just standing there, staring deep into Nero's eyes.

There she tumbled through viruses and things they couldn't explain. She could see powerful men using arcane rituals. She could see him watching holograms of Liam and Blood, and she could see them clearly. Not human; just monsters that looked human. Monsters who adopted a pose, because it kept them safe. Because it allowed them to lurk and hunt among the humans.

And for the first time, she realized why Blood laughed so hard about his name.

She looked at the back of his head, at the way he wasn't turning around to face her, and suddenly the tenderness he'd shown her before was covered through and through with his nature, undisclosed.

Blood leaned forward, into Nero. "Yeah, thought you might," he said viciously, grabbing the smaller man and lifting him up, into the air, where he dangled from Blood's grip like a fish on a line.

Apparently Blood felt the cat was entirely out of the bag, because he didn't even try to hide the unearthly strength.

"Oh," said Mal. "Not a metaphor, then?"

"No," said River. "Not a metaphor. None of what they say is metaphor; it's literal, but they hide it in plain sight."

Liam turned around, raising his hands. "Well, glass houses and all that, eh, little girl?"

Mal's mind rejected it, accepted it, then rejected it again. He was used to things changing fast under him, and when that carpet was pulled he tended to turn quickly to violence. He kept the gun out and pointed at this man, still unsure what any of this meant.

Jayne was starting to get a little superstitious, and unpredictable. River made a mental note to beat some sense into him on the subject some time.

Zoe was as dependable as always. She was not a woman with a great imagination; she was a soldier. She knew only that River's voice had changed, and when River had called Blood and Liam monsters, she knew that River had seen something that scared her in Nero's mind. Seen something of Blood and Liam that scared her.

And Zoe knew what scared River. She remembered River collapsing when Reavers were near.

And River was happy, for a second. Because Zoe didn't think about all the possibilities, and she didn't get stuck trying to imagine them. She didn't give in to fear, or to hesitation. She simply trusted River and Mal and Jayne to be as smart as she was being, and she kept her eyes firmly on Blood and Liam and thought about what ought to happen to people who scared River.

"Why?" asked River, emboldened by Zoe.

Blood tossed aside the man he was holding like he was a sack of potatoes. "Because!" he snarled. "Wait, why what?" He still didn't turn around to face her.

"Why?" she asked, a little bit plaintively.

He sighed, the life passing out of him. "Because you're a Big Damn Hero? Because there are monsters in the night? I don't know why. I'm not even sure who, any more."

River tried to find some little slice of truth in there, but wasn't sure what his questions were, any more than he was able to find her questions. So she tried to make her questions obvious. She didn't often do this. To her, if a person was too stupid to understand the level of thought she was achieving, they weren't worth the bother to talk to.

But he was worth it.

"I want to know… why you are. A monster."

"Why? Because there are monsters; because they like to make more. Because a monster, long ago and far away, chose me. Because I liked it. Because I still like it. No, love it." He turned around to face her, and his face was hard, so hard it made her insides tingle unpleasantly. "Look, we're a little bit of monster inside, aren't we? We have that darkness in us. That tingling feeling that the next time we kill... the last time we killed… we enjoyed it. We will enjoy it again. And we know we will do it again. It's just a question of when and how."

Mal had heard too much already. It sounded too much like his own thoughts, like the worst nightmares he'd had. "Shut up!" he growled.

Blood smirked. "Believe me, it brings me no joy at all to see how terribly, terribly alike you and I are. Time was, I didn't want to see it. Didn't want to see how even good people could get gummed up with killing and destroying, could let the darkness in. But it's not the darkness in us that defines us; it's not that rage that makes us a man. It's what we do with that. How we deal with that. Whether we kill the innocent or the guilty. I know the lot of you; survivors in a tiny island of peace in a terrible, terrible world. But you all try, in your own ways, to make that peace extend to the world in general. Thieves and bad man, yet you took your tiny island of peace to the very heart of the Reavers, and you told the `Verse who caused that. You set about shaking the foundations of this world to make things right."

That he was a stone-cold killer didn't change the way his words affected Mal. That he was a terrible man, and even some kind of inhuman monster, couldn't stop Mal's hand from shaking. He hated that, tightening his grip on the gun to hide it. "What are you talking about?"

"Monster I may be; but I'm not fighting the Alliance," said Blood. "Liam may be, but I'm not. I'm fighting Evil. Whatever form it takes, wherever it shows its face. I'm fighting for little islands of peace like this. I'm fighting the good fight—and I've been too long stuck in this one battle, against the Alliance. I was losing sight of that myself, like my obsessive friend here."

Liam growled. "Easy, Willy," he muttered. "You're scaring them."

"It's a scary world," said Blood. "Gets scarier the longer you see it; and I've been alive a very, very long time."

Jayne shot him.

4.

He woke up in the room he'd been sharing with Eva. Eva and Liam were facing off, and Liam had a few opaque bags in his hands, trying to get around Eva. He groaned, touching the bullet hole in his chest.

"That pile of _go se _shot me?" he said, trying to talk around the bleeding lungs. He mostly gurgled.

Liam pushed Eva out of the way. "Apparently somewhere between 'I'm a monster' and 'I've walked this Earth a long time' he decided you were too dangerous for little bitty River," he said sarcastically. "Damn, Willy! A gun that size, he could have taken your head off."

Blood groaned, leaning back in the bed. "And you two saved me, huh?"

"Crazy-girl did," muttered Eva. "Because a complete _xiong meng de kung ren._ I think I like her."

Blood chuckled painfully, leaning his head forward to catch the packet Liam was offering. "Thanks."

Liam shook his head. "Yeah, this is worse than the knife in the chest. That was a shot no human could survive. Now they're freaked out. Even your crazy girl. We're headed for the nearest planet, but they don't really trust us at all now."

"Just as well," muttered Blood. "Because when our boy shows up…"

"Who is he?" asked Eva. "And what is he?"

"Part what we are. Part what the Reavers are. Part what loony is," said Blood. "And completely psychopathic. They keep him in a deeper, darker hole than they kept me in, that time they caught me."

She sighed. "And how do you plan to fight him?"

Blood grimaced. "Sweetheart, how do we ever fight? Fists and guns and knives."

Liam rolled his shoulders, making popping noises. "Shut up and drink. I need you healed up for this one."

Blood chuckled. "Out of sorts?"

Liam laughed. "I'm trying not to die laughing, Willy. Here we are, about to go toe to toe with somebody we've never been able to beat before, and you're laughing at me. At me!"

"You didn't like my big speechifying," mumbled Blood, smiling. "Lost your flair for the dramatic with your will to fight this fight, old man?"

Liam leaned over Blood. "I haven't been myself since the time machine!" he snarled. "You know it; I know it! And I can't believe you don't care! Can't!"

Blood grabbed Liam by the neck with a weak hand. "I'm not all you have left in this world, you know," he said. He nodded to Eva. "Ask her, eh? Ask her who she would have fought for, who she thought was family. Ask her."

Liam shook himself free, moving away from Blood. "Ever the Romantic," he said bitterly. "There's nothing of hope or goodness left in me, Willy. Nothing."

Blood sucked down the contents of the bag, not bothering to hide the nature of what he was drinking from Eva. "Don't mind him," he mumbled around a mouthful of hot blood. "He ain't exactly what you'd call…. Right. Hasn't been."

"Right?" asked Eva, laughing. "You two are crazier than the girl!"

Blood chuckled. "Ain't that the truth… We're too much like them, and not enough like them. We have to leave them behind. Damn you for being right, Liam."

Liam sighed. "Always doing the selfish thing," he mumbled. "I'm sorry, Willy. I really am."

Eva shook her head. "Crazy's here to talk to you," she told Blood.

He sat up, checking his wounds, which were already closing up. "Let her in, then."

River walked in like she owned the room, as if everybody there owed her something. She glowered around at all of them, but mostly at Blood. "Show me," she said.

His face shifted, bones moving under his skin. His façade of humanity dropped away, revealing the true, monstrous nature beneath it. Predator. Destroyer. Then the yellow eyes and ridges moved back away, back to human, and he wiped the blood off his lips. "Sorry, love," he said.

She glared at Liam. "You too."

He shook his head. "Sorry, but not for you. I'm not as comfortable with that side of myself as he is."

Blood laughed. "You know why? Dualism. His soul got stuffed in on top of the demon. A punishment for the demon. My soul got merged in, a reward for the demon. Makes a lot of difference, really. Means I can be more evil than him, and it doesn't bother me."

"Demon," she said, tasting the words.

Blood rose to his feet, only stumbling a little bit. "Yeah, love. Demons. That's what we are. Monsters. Beasts who exist to prey on the innocent."

"You aren't evil, though," she pressed.

He shrugged. "It's a long story. But I wouldn't say we're not entirely evil. We're just… trying."

She looked down at the blood packet. "And you don't feed from humans?"

He laughed. "It's human blood, pet. And I've killed more than a few. If I'm going to kill them anyway, you know, why not get a little nourishment from it? I know, I'm just making excuses. That's part of what I do. Monster, right?"

She didn't like this answer, realizing immediately that he was trying to drive her back as a prelude to pushing her away from him permanently. She'd known when she went to him before that the connection they had formed was tenuous, and that she had jumped straight into physicality too soon.

So she scowled, glancing to Liam. "And just what is your relationship to him?"

Blood laughed. "The terminology is centuries old, and wouldn't make sense. He's an elder vampire in my pack… the one who taught me to hunt humans, to hate, to destroy. To kill. Sire, I always called him, although technically it would be Grand-Sire… but he never felt two generations removed."

River scowled. "And then who taught who to love and be… what you are?"

Liam laughed out loud. "Who taught who, Willy?"

Blood scowled. "He got a head-start on the self-control bit, and the doing good bit. But I didn't learn from him. I found my own way—and I didn't need some group of gypsies cursing me to kick me into it, either!"

"Just a chip in your head, eh?" asked Liam.

Their rambling was nonsensical. River reminded herself why she'd come here. "It doesn't matter to me. I've seen what you are on the inside—not a monster. A man." She pointed at Blood. "Hide it as you will, you care."

His face softened a bit. "Insightful, love. Tragically insightful. Sadly, it won't help. I'm leaving with Liam. I can't stay here; I have a war to fight. And it's been a long time since I've remembered so vividly why I'm fighting this war. Why I have to fight evil every day. And Liam's even more lost than me… but I can't fix him. I've never been able to. All I can do is kill things that need to be killed. Save the world. The whole `Verse."

"It's an awfully big `Verse for one man to protect," she said, terrified now that she'd lose this man before she even got to really know him.

He grinned widely and arrogantly. "That's why it's a good thing I'm not a man, eh?"

There were many things she wanted to say. Strange and unfamiliar emotions washed through her, and she wanted desperately to say something to let him know how terribly lost she felt.

But he had put up shields of happy indifference and monstrousness, and she knew that even if he were to stay here, on this ship, she had lost whatever might have been there.


	8. Chapter 8

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 8

1.

Ian knew it was a trap. How could they hope to surprise a psychic?

But he knew that this barren rock they had selected was as good a place as any to kill them all. That this terrible place was more than a fitting tomb for vampires. There was a sun, of sorts, but light most suns in these other worlds, it didn't operate on these monsters the way the first Sun had. This sun might weaken them, or make them more savage, but it wouldn't kill them.

He could tell from the first moment the wash of ultraviolet hit his face as he was heading into the solar system, and he felt an edge from it. No pain, just a tugging at his inner-most parts.

He didn't like that much.

He landed a ways from their ambush, and suited up. He always wore clothes that were a little too bright, that drew the eyes. He liked it when people looked at him. When they gave him that little slice of their soul, unknowingly.

He hummed while he wrapped the pink scarf around his neck. William had given him the scarf, the last time they met, deep in the Alliance's prisons. William had told him then that he would have to kill Ian if he ever got let out again.

Ian hoped not. The two of them had a lot in common. For starters, both of them were dead. Sort of.

It was complicated. William couldn't have killed him before, not with all those iron bars between them—and besides, William had been in the middle of a breakout at the time, with not a lot of time for pleasantries.

Still, there had been a long moment between them. A moment when for the first time Ian felt kindred with another being, instead of just the feeling that he was looking at dinner. For the first time he'd felt a sense of belonging.

Even the Reavers couldn't give him that. They were meat; just crazier than most meat.

So he set out to find the Other, and William.

2.

River wanted to stay and help, but Blood insisted it was unnecessary. As far as Mal was concerned, that was the voice of god speaking. He was going to listen very closely, obey as much as possible, and not complain.

Because he didn't like it when they took risks that weren't planned, weren't necessary, and couldn't get them any profit at all.

River leaned against him, wrapping her arms around him in a desperate hug. "They need help," she said softly.

Mal shook his head, not rising to the bait. "They need more'n a gun to hand and a few nice friends; their heads need straightening, their whole lives need a touch of something I don't have."

They stood there watching them, but River noted that he made no move to take off, to run away and cut his losses. So she turned and headed out the back.

Mal cursed, tapping the intercom. "Zoe, don't let River off the ship."

There was a long pause. "And how do you suggest I stop her… sir?"

He hesitated. "Where's Jayne?"

"He just left with her. Sir."

She seemed determined to add the sir; possibly to salve his wounded pride. It was a terrible thing, being reminded that as much as the crew let him call himself captain, they certainly didn't treat him as one. He grumbled under his breath, checking that his gun was loaded. "Guess we'd better go with them, then."

"Guess we'd better."

3.

Blood stared into the sun. "A million worlds, a million suns… it never gets old, does it?"

Liam grunted, checking the gun he was carefully assembling. "If we still had the time machine… would you use it to try to stop us from using it?"

"What?"

"I've been trying to work out our mistake."

"Bloody mistake was using it, mate."

Liam sighed. "Funny… I always try to go back, revisit my mistakes. Do better. Work out a way to make it work. But I've never found a way. You never try to go back, revisit mistakes, and somehow you come out ahead."

Blood laughed. "Because I move forward, Liam. Now, come on. You know I'm second fiddle. I don't make big plans; and the ones I do make fail. I need you to take charge the way you once did."

Liam snarled at him. "While my doppelganger's out there, nothing I can do won't be anticipated! I thought you understood why I wasn't making plans!"

Blood sighed. "I understand, but we've come to the point where it doesn't matter. We have to move forward. They're aware of us, they're tracking us. Tommy, little Tommy, has been turned. He's one of us now, and that explains why he tried to kill me when he was always the most reasonable of the Alliance men I knew. You know, the Wolf, Ram, Hart thing… there should be three of them. There's only one we know of, one senior partner, and it's you. Makes you wonder, don't it?"

"There's two others, of course," said Liam patiently. "I'm only one of the three… and I got the distinct impression I was the youngest."

"Yeah, well, I wonder which one you are."

Liam sighed. "I think you're missing the point."

"Whatever. He's coming."

"You can tell?"

"You can't feel that? I thought your sense of smell was what went screwy."

Liam grimaced. "I've been…. Off. For a while."

Blood gave him a disbelieving glare. "You're kidding. Why am I only hearing this now?"

But there was a barrier between them, and they both knew it. Even if Blood refused to acknowledge how far apart they drifted; how little they had ever had in common. Family they had been, and would continue to be.

But it was a decidedly dysfunctional family.

Liam bared his teeth. "I can't sense things like I could; my strength is failing; I've been half a vampire for a long time. Every day I fade away a little more. Every day I become less a monster, more a shadow. Soon, if we don't win? All that'll be left is the other, the half of me that I left in the past."

Blood thought about that for a long minute. "What happened in the past that you didn't tell me about?"

Liam made a face. "Well, they weren't going to… it was going badly, you see. The whole Slayer thing. So I went in to make sure the world got them."

Blood snorted. "Bloody idiot. Paradox…"

"Yeah, I know. Still, I thought it was kind of neat to have had a hand in their creation."

"Neat? Yeah, I suppose. And?"

"I had… a vision. Some kind of vision quest, anyway. It was… they gave me a chance to take all the bad things in me, and get rid of them."

Blood's eyes popped wide open. "You bloody idiot! Why did you wait till now to tell me all this?"

"Because I was a little embarrassed I took the deal, when in retrospect it was obvious what I did," mumbled Liam. "Anyway. I think that's why I'm fading."

Blood sighed. "Always putting pressure on… here he comes."

4.

Ian tried to keep his trembling under control. He knew it was just the brainwashing, the training, that made him hate the Other so very much. But he couldn't help it. Knowing it wasn't really him didn't stop the desperate hatred, the burning desire to tear him into bloody little pieces. And then burn those pieces.

He smiled at sweet, sweet William. "How are you, William?" he asked softly.

William scowled at him, adjusting his grip on the two-handed sword he was holding. "Mate, I know we had a special bonding moment back in the dungeons and all… but you're here to kill us, and smiling and playing nice doesn't change that."

Ian nodded, trying to ignore the Other for a second. "I don't have to kill you; just him."

William shook his head. "Kill him, kill me, that's the same thing, really. Because without him, I don't even have a plan. I'm just a neurotic pile of anger running around waiting for the bad guys to come to me so I can kill them. He's always been my Yoda… the guy who points me where I need to go. The guy who keeps me on the straight and narrow…ish. I'm nothing if I let you take him from me."

Ian made a face. "So you and I will fight, and then I will kill you both. I'm sorry, William. You were kind to me… the only person who ever was."

William's face changed, and Ian smelled the approaching humans the same time he did. Ian turned, lifting one hand, and let the energy flow down his arm, blasting Liam in the chest quickly. He knew the big man was the more dangerous of the two—mostly because of his savage brutality, but also because of his amazing fighting prowess.

The electricity blew him off his feet, sending him flying away from the pile of weapons he had been hovering over, waiting for a chance to use. Ian might be a little crazy; he wasn't stupid. Did they honestly think he'd just let them stand there and use those weapons?

A bullet caught Ian in the chest, taking him off his feet even as William started forward, swinging that sword. Ian panicked a little bit, unleashing the last of the energy stored up inside him to slow William down.

The humans were attacking and taking sides against him. How was that fair? Did they have any idea what he doing, here? Any idea what William and the Other were up to?

He rolled to his feet, shrugging off the bullet wound, and carefully sent out a low-level psychic burst. He could see the big man who'd shot him fall to his knees, and he laughed out loud. "Not so tough now, are you?" he asked sweetly. "Childhood fears coming back to haunt you?"

The little girl was still running at him, full out, so he let loose every bit of psychic power he had, unleashing all her childhood fears all at once.

She kept running, and the smile slid off his face. This was her, then. The girl who, like him, already had all that loose in her head. The girl who had a psychic gift and they'd tried to make it as big as his. The girl whose brain had been cut up to look more like his.

He let go of his psychic tricks then. There was no point even trying that. He knew that a battle to see who had the most power might go on hours, and during that time William would recover, and take his head with that sword while he was distracted.

Better to do this the old fashioned way.

He leaned into her first blow, breaking every bone in her hand. She spun around, kicking at him, surprised by his mass.

He was a cyborg, of course. Half his body had been replaced with electronics and reinforced bone. He was supposed to be able to fight a vampire. Even before they had decided to make him part-vampire, he had been stronger than any vampire.

He backhanded her, sending her flying through the air almost twenty feet. She managed to twist in mid-air and land gracefully, but she could tell the blow had injured her pretty badly. She was limping as she tried to charge again.

Ian turned back to William, who was on his feet, swinging that sword in a long, overhanded swing at Ian's head. Ian caught the blade in one metallic hand, pulling it out of William's grip and tossing it aside. "You don't think it'll be that easy, do you?" he asked, grabbing William by the throat and throwing him straight at the charging girl.

5.

Every nightmare he'd ever had was passing through Jayne's head at top speed. He was sweating and gasping for breath, kneeling in cold sand.

He could see his father's face the day he died. He could see his first step-daddy's fists. He could hear sweet little Lea whining about how he'd hit her.

He could see Reavers everywhere.

He couldn't seem to breathe. He was panting, and his throat felt tight.

He could feel hands on his shoulders. Grasping him, twisting his skin, tearing at him. Hands that weren't right.

He was crying like a baby, sobbing, begging them to stop, when he remembered that River had been right beside him when it had started.

A different fear took hold of him then. He had been covering. He'd had her back. And these things… he knew that she'd fought them before, but he also knew, bone-deep, that nobody could fight them and live.

He couldn't let her face them alone.

He forced his eyes open, dropping the rifle and drawing a pistol in each hand. At close range they had more stopping power, and he could hit more of them faster.

He could see empty sand. He could also see Reavers that weren't there, all running towards him. He lined up a shot, but the Reaver wasn't there. He could see empty sand dunes.

He could hear fighting.

He could hear Reavers.

He wanted to close his eyes and start shooting, but he knew she was here. Somewhere. He climbed up to his feet carefully, keeping both eyes wide open, and stumbled forward, towards the fighting.

6.

River was injured. Not just a little, but a lot. Her right hand had three broken bones in it, and she could feel stabs of pain every time she moved. She'd twisted her knee landing, and she was fairly sure her shoulder was dislocated from the blow that had sent her flying.

Her ribs might be broken. She didn't have time to think about it. Blood, sweet Blood, was on his knees in front of her, trying to get back into the fray and keep her out of harm's way.

Ian was trying to get to Liam, of course. Advancing on him. Liam was back on his feet, still smoldering, and had grabbed a sword. His face had changed, showing his true nature.

River grabbed hold of William's collar with her good hand, holding on to him with all the strength she had left. She was beginning to get a glimmer of the true nature of the beast in front of them, beginning to see what his creators had intended. He was more powerful than she had realized.

He was older than her, older than she had realized, touching his diseased, premature and immature brain. There was so much age to him, age that time couldn't touch. Age that seemed to erode everything about him.

And she realized, then, that he had met William long before she had been born.

Ian was busily using his arm as a sword, fighting Liam, who was fast, deadly, and brutal. He was also graceful, something that had escaped her notice before. For a big man he moved like a slip of light, like a shadow flickering across her vision. Each movement was efficient and deadly.

And too, too slow.

Ian moved like a striking cobra, grabbing the sword out of Liam's hand. But the big monster was ready for this, and got a chokehold on the other man, plunging his teeth down into Ian's neck.

Ian yelped. River felt William shudder under her hand, and caught a wistful strand of sorrow running off of him. "Too much, too late," he whispered. "Stand back, love. It only gets worse."

Ian slammed a hand into Liam's face, tearing a chunk out of his shoulder and neck, still attached to those terrible fangs. Liam flew through the air, describing a perfect arc, then slammed heavily to the ground. He didn't get up.

Ian rolled his head on his shoulders, ignoring the blood pumping down the front of his shirt. "You know, there's no time for me to waste on petty fights like this. I'm in the middle of a war, you know! The same war you two are fighting."

"Opposite side," muttered Blood, shaking River's hand loose and climbing slowly to his feet, where he swayed unsteadily. "Ian, bloke, you've lost all that you once were. Drowned in a sea of evil. Don't you see that?"

Ian shrugged. "Good, evil, whatever. I know what I have to do. I know what's right. Don't you know that anymore, sweet William?"

The gunshot blew his head cleanly off his shoulders, and for a second his body twitched and strained unsteadily before falling into a lifeless heap.

7.

Mal wasn't happy at all. The psychic attack that had incapacitated him for the entirety of the fight was part of it. He'd relived every bad day of his life, and he'd seen more than a few bad days. Enough bad days to fill a lifetime. He didn't need more.

Zoe was more shaken than she was letting on. She was stoic, but the worst day of her life had been losing Wash. Her eyes were sadder than he'd ever seen, and he could see a different kind of darkness lurking behind those black pupils.

They stayed huddled behind a sand dune, waiting. Wondering what had cut off the attack, wondering why nobody had thought to tell them one of the weapons of war would be something they couldn't fight at all.

Zoe glanced up over the dune. "Here they come, sir," she said.

He ground his teeth a little bit. He hated not being able to keep his crew safe. "Are they all right?"

She poked her head back up. "Well, Jayne's carrying River… who's hugging his neck. Sir."

He gave her a flat stare. "You sure she ain't just hanging onto him to stay up?"

She returned his stare with a disbelieving one. "A woman can tell the difference between hanging onto somebody for support and hanging onto somebody because you want to," she said. "And she is hanging onto him in a very friendly way just now."

Mal straightened up, checking for himself. It was true, the way she was pressing her face into his big mercenary's neck was decidedly friendly, and didn't seem at all to be about the obvious injuries she'd sustained. He took note of Blood and Liam, limping along behind them, and wondered just why she was hanging to Jayne like that, and not the fellow she was sleeping with.

It confused him mightily.

8.

Jayne didn't believe in very many things at all. He wasn't a big believer in niceties, or in loyalty, or in not murdering your own captain if the money was good enough. He was a killer, through and through, and it didn't give him a lot of bother.

But family was something else. You didn't screw around with family; you didn't treat it lightly. You didn't hurt it. You surely didn't let somebody else hurt it.

He understood all that.

He didn't understand why it had been so blasted important to him to make sure River was safe; why he'd walked deeper into all his nightmares than he could ever have imagined. Why he'd stared down the sights and killed a man he'd never met for her, while every demon in his imagination had climbed all over him.

He was covered in sweat, and it wasn't the good kind of sweat, the kind that came with exertion. It was fear and humiliation.

And he was carrying the little moon-brained girl, and she was content and happy. And he was pretty sure that was on account of him, but he tried not to think about that.

So he just carried her quietly. The Captain and Zoe met them soon after that, and they walked on together in silence. The two of them looked as bad off as he'd felt, and he reckoned there was nothing to be said about that particular feeling that wouldn't make them all feel a little less competent and manful. So he said nothing at all.

When they got back to the ship Kaylee and Simon gave him identical confused and suspicious looks. They were all more or less familiar with him, and even those who considered him more guardian than enemy—Kaylee, actually, was the only one who looked at him that way—they still had trouble seeing past all his hatred and fear for the little psychic.

As well they should. He had trouble with that, too.

The doc's little doctoring room was all filled up to the brim, now. The two soldiers who had been working for Blood and Liam were both in there still, shot up and pale. And now River was there, all pale and weak and broken.

She smiled at him. "She heals fast," she assured him.

9.

Simon tried to figure out what had happened, but nobody was saying anything except Blood. That made Simon nervous. He was still trying to come to terms with how this murderous devil had ended up in his sister's bed; he didn't want to actually talk to him.

Still, once everybody had secured themselves and they were underway, he was the one who showed up in the makeshift recovery room to sit with River. His wounds were already healing, evidence of his other-worldly nature.

Simon broached the subject gently. "Just how did all this happen?" he asked, gesturing to River's wounds. He'd sedated her, but her eyes were still half-open—well, the right one, anyway. The left one had swollen shut.

"Bugger was stronger than I thought," muttered Blood. "Nearly killed us all."

"How did you beat him, exactly?" pressed Simon.

Blood glowered at him. "Why, you want to know in case you have to fight one of those types in the future?"

Simon cast his eyes down, trying to figure out exactly how to respond to that. "I'm just… why didn't you warn her?"

"I bloody did," growled the monster. "I told her not to come anywhere close to that fight. But I suppose you have some magic way to keep her from doing things she's not supposed to be doing? I suppose so, yeah."

Simon flushed, moving further away from this monster with the too-sharp barbs. He glanced up, appraising the thing for a long second. From the too-sharp cheekbones to the too-blue eyes, it seemed almost perfect in appearance. The scar over one eye gave it a dangerous look; but the hand resting on his sister's arm, just under the end of the short sleeve, made it seem almost nurturing.

He tried not to dwell, but it was hard not to. "What—exactly—are your intentions towards my sister?" he asked finally.

The creature barked a laugh. "Standing ready to defend her honor? What exactly do you think you'd do if my intentions were, shall we say… less than pure?"

Simon had no answer to that, either. He looked away. "You've relied heavily on our good will," he said, anger creeping into his voice.

"We've relied heavily on your stupidity," growled Blood. "Don't sugarcoat."

"Uh… all right. What—why—no, I don't think—"

"Just spit it out!" snapped Blood. "You want me to stay away from her, your captain wants me to stay away from her, everybody wants me to stay away from her! Fine!"

Simon hesitated. "Why was Jayne carrying her back?"

"Because he wants me to stay away from her too! Are you really that daft? Can't you see those two have been thick as thieves?"

Simon had been preparing himself for that answer. "Are you jealous?" he asked.

Blood slowed down, looking away. "You're more devious than you look," he mumbled.

"Are you?" pressed Simon.

"Am I jealous? You mean to ask if I care," snarled Blood. "You mean to ask if he cares. You mean to ask what's going on in your sister's life, and in her pants, and you should just ask her yourself, no matter how clever you think you are! Because when it comes to family, those little unasked questions will screw you right up!"

Simon swallowed down a knot in his throat. "You have no idea how much I love my sister."

"Yeah? I'm a poster child for love not being enough, mate. You love her that much? You let her know. You show her the respect of being honest that you hate her decisions and want her to do different. You know what? You even go behind her back and do what's best for her if you have to. But you bloody well don't have this conversation with me."

Simon thought about it. "That's just avoidance."

Blood sighed. "Yeah."

"What rankles more? That you couldn't save her—or that Jayne could?"

Simon decided that he had found the man's buttons quite well enough.

And Blood punched him in the face.


	9. Chapter 9

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 9

1.

River was decidedly not amused that Blood had beaten Simon up.

She suspected he'd pulled his punches a little bit, but he still left Simon a mass of bruises and pain.

Simon's ego was as bruised as his exterior, but he was also surprised. He hadn't realized that Blood was a bundle of neuroses and fears. He hadn't realized that Blood was tearing himself apart from the inside. He hadn't realized there was any genuine emotion there.

River knew Simon was confused now. Why was a psychotic killer so deeply involved, so terribly hurt, and so determined to get away from her now?

River wished she understood it too.

So she sought him out again.

She found Blood hiding in the galley, hovering around the table, pushing a fork around on an empty plate.

She tried to ignore her heart skipping and jumping and protesting that this man, this monster, was dearer to her than she wanted to admit. She admonished her foolish, lying heart, and approached him cautiously. "You shouldn't have hit Simon."

"That boy's too smart," muttered Blood. "Too smart and too sharp and not nearly wise enough to know when to hide it."

She moved closer, wondering at how a body with no heat could make her feel so warm when she got close enough to it. "You aren't nearly as nasty as you seem."

"I'm worse," he said, and there was despair in his voice. "I know what I ought to do, and I'm fully capable of doing it, but I don't. I know I oughtn't hit the big ponce when he says what I know's true… but then I want to, more'n breathing."

She moved close enough to touch him, standing behind him. "And you're going to run away from me now, just like he said. Why do you think that is?"

He chuckled. "Why do I think…? Why do you?"

Then he spun around, away from the table, grabbing her so fast that she almost didn't realize what he was doing before he had picked her up in his arms, holding her tightly, and pressed her against the wall, holding her still and staring into her eyes.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, grabbing desperately at his ears to try to hold him still. "What are you doing?" she asked, trying to cover for her heart, which was hammering away. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist.

There was a sadness in his eyes that she hated to see. "Memorizing," he said carefully. "Do you think it's easy for me to walk away from anything? Especially not you. Can you see that? Can you feel that?"

Her heart fluttered. "You've only known me a few days."

"I always was foolish that way," he muttered. "Foolish enough to throw away everything I have, everything I am, give it away to a woman. The first time I did it, it cost me my life. The second, it cost me everything that I thought I was. D'you hear me, you crazy little girl?"

She did. More than that, she understood what he was trying to tell her but couldn't seem to say out loud.

It wasn't quite a goodbye. But it was probably as close as he had ever come. She understood suddenly that he had never said goodbye. Never willingly left a person behind. And that as many times as his heart had been broken, and would be broken, he could never learn to guard against that, could never withhold anything.

She kissed him, trying to understand why he was so sad, and she could taste the salt of his tears. She kissed him again, because she wanted to explain to him that she understood.

She didn't have any particular reason for the kisses that came after that.

2.

When they took off they left the spy on the rocky, desolate planetoid. Mal left him almost three days worth of food—hopefully enough for him to find civilization of some level or other and survive.

He couldn't find any of his crew except Zoe. He was stuck driving, and he was afraid he knew where River was. The assassin who'd been chasing Liam and Blood was conferring with Liam in the cargo bay. They were cleaning the stockpile of weapons and returning them to Blood's luggage, and now they seemed thick as thieves.

Mal was confused. His loyalties were simple, and didn't change like water underneath his feet. For these people, that was all they ever seemed to do. He wasn't sure he could live the way they lived, and was somewhat happy of it.

So he retreated to the bridge, only to find Jayne there.

He didn't have the time or energy for any of the thug's nonsense. "What do you want, Jayne?" he asked, sitting down and pretending to examine their course.

"I need to talk about some of this _go se_," grumbled Jayne.

"With me?"

"Got nobody else will listen."

Mal wanted to rebuff him, but this might just be important. It might shine some light on what happened out there in the desert. It might help him understand.

So he was quiet, waiting.

Jayne took a deep breath. "Folks like us, we ain't exactly good, are we?"

Mal knew that, but he was surprised Jayne knew it. "No, we aren't."

"But we ain't exactly bad, are we?"

"No. We're as we should be, no more, no less."

"But these people—these monsters… they ain't."

Mal wasn't entirely sure what they were, but he was sure they were nothing like he and Jayne. "No, they're not."

"That thing we fought, he was worse'n Reavers. And they knew it. And they were… they were ready. They knew they might die, and they didn't care. They went out anyway. Could've run. Lots of running space. But they wouldn't."

"There's lots who would rather fight than run."

"Not the things they want to fight." Jayne was puzzled by this. "They want to go up against everything."

Mal laughed. "I suppose."

"Not everything. Everything… bad. They're damn heroes is what they are. The kind that don't exist in this or any 'Verse."

Mal ground his teeth together. "Or they're very good liars."

Jayne shook his head. "I thought they was. They seemed like it. But they ain't."

Mal knew that there wasn't a very much more cynical man in this verse than Jayne. He sometimes made Mal look as innocent as a girl scout.

It was entirely disconcerting to hear him use the word hero.

3.

River wasn't sure what woke her from her sleep. It might have been some hum in the ship's engines, or some especially awkward moment somebody else on the ship was experiencing. It might have been a noise anybody else made.

It wasn't Blood, of course, because he wasn't there.

She got up, checking the rest of the room with one sweeping glance, then gathered her clothes.

She found him talking to Liam in the kitchen. They both stopped talking and gave her baleful stares when she came in.

She crossed the room, standing behind Blood and putting her hands on his shoulders. "Making plans you don't want me to hear?" she asked sweetly.

Blood sighed, putting his hand on the one that was still bandaged, the one she'd broken trying to save his life. "Love, you don't know the half of it. Liam was just telling me how he was pretty sure he could topple world governments, and I'm arguing the point. And don't tell me the thought of toppling a few world governments doesn't send shivers down your spine."

It did, actually. She had some very long-standing grudges against some very highly placed government officials.

He smiled, tracing the line of her knuckles with one finger. "I know that look all too well. Seen it on a million different faces."

"If you really have to leave… can't I come with you?" she asked.

She knew the question itself would horrify Mal and Simon. Even Jayne. She knew it wasn't smart. She knew it would probably lead her to the same fiery death these two were courting.

But she wanted it worse than she had ever wanted anything else.

He smiled, but it was a guarded smile. "That's not the best idea I've ever heard," he demurred. She knew that tone of voice. Her mouth twisted sourly.

"For my own good?"

He shrugged. "Can you look me in the eye and tell me you really, truly understand what I am? Can you tell me that I'd be doing wrong to make you stay here while I ran away? Can you?"

She didn't like it when he played fair. It would have been much better if he had just sweet-talked her, or said soothing bits of nonsense. She tightened her grip on his shoulders. "I don't even know your real name."

"It is William," said Liam. "Always has been. He carries many other names—Slayer of Slayers, William the Bloody, Spike… but at his core, he's just William. The boy who always loved too much, with too little caution. From the very first day of his life up till now."

She glanced up at him quizzically. "Is this a new tactic in your never-ending quest to keep us apart?"

He chuckled. "When'd you pick up on that?"

"I can't read your mind; but I can read the mind of every person you plan and plot with. It wasn't a very well-kept secret."

He laughed out loud. "No, it's not another tactic. See, you saved my life earlier. Think of this as a bit of payback."

That he called it payback and not a reward was telling of the value he placed on his own life. "Oh, really?"

Liam chuckled, nodding down at Blood's stony face. "He knows what I'm going to say next is true, or else he would already be arguing the point. See, I wanted to keep you away from him because I'm stupid and selfish; I wanted him all to myself. I wasn't thinking of what was best for him. But now I am… and it's not you."

Blood swung to his feet. "Take it back, Liam."

But there was despair in his voice, because he believed it too.

4.

River found Jayne in his bunk, carefully cleaning his weapons. She sat with him for a while, just watching those strong hands work on the guns, and then she picked one up and helped for a while in silence.

He took a deep breath finally, setting Vera aside. "What is it?" he grumbled.

She shrugged. "You're simple. No complications. No little bits that explode after a while. No contradictions. Right now."

He smiled. "Simple, huh?"

She nodded fervently. "Not all thorny and complicated and—she did not mean that."

He grinned. It faded quickly. She never misspoke, and she never accidentally insulted him. "You okay?"

He was sharper than his ignorance implied. She knew that, but was still unsettled by it. Fun as it was to bicker, it was hard to hide anything from him. Brutish, thuggish, and simple, but never stupid. "I think I'm in love."

He sighed heavily. "That's just little girl feelings talkin`. Crush. Infatusomething."

"Infatuation," she said, surprised he had tried to draw on the word.

"Yeah. School-girl thoughts. Real love ain't so… so silly. _Dong ma?_"

She made a face at him. "If it's not real love, why does it hurt so?"

He didn't have any kind of answer at all for that. "Pain's just the way we learn how to do better," he mumbled, an aphorism he didn't really believe at all. It was something the preacher had told him.

She smiled, aware of the phrases' origins. "It'll be good to get all these extra folks off the ship, won't it?"

"It will."

"He won't take me with him." The simple words betrayed the hurt she felt at it, and she knew it confused him. He didn't much like Blood.

For a second he just thought about it, surprised. "Damn hero thing to do," he said finally.

She sighed. This was new, between them, and a little uncomfortable. It would have been better with fighting, and yelling. It would have been better with screaming and shrieking.

They'd always had that between them, and it had made sense. It had seemed right. Now he was the only person here she could talk to, the only one who listened and heard the little bits she laid between the lines.

They had nothing in common but a way of thinking, a way of walking sideways through life. Of seeing dangers, and solving them with violence. A way of seeing enemies everywhere.

She had no idea why it all worked just right between them. Why his callous way of thinking about people gelled so well with hers. He viewed people as problems. Things y ou had to deal with.

He also was all angles and walls, keeping other people out and away from him. He worked very hard to keep people from getting to the tight, closed-off part of his heart labeled 'family.'

She didn't know just why she was in there, or how. It had happened sometime after Miranda. Or perhaps it had been a long process, and Miranda had just been part of it.

For whatever reason. She was in.

And things were fragile in there. He didn't let people in lightly, because of that. Most of them, not at all.

She carefully set his gun down, trying to quantify the confusing feelings that crowded in to her tiny head. "I do love him. It's not just some fancy, some desire. It's not entirely rational, and it's messy. And it won't last, not if he won't let it."

Jayne sighed. "A thing like that, atween a man and a woman, only leads to trouble."

"I wanted to go with him. To fight with him. I really wanted it."

Jayne nodded. "An' you'd just die with him, I reckon."

"Would you come with me? If I left? Would you fight the world? Or keep on surviving like you are?"

"A man's got to know his limits."

"But we shook this world!"

"We sent a wave. That's not much against the big stuff."

"But we were heroes! I was, and you were too. And the captain was especially, but you and me, we were holding them off for him. It's how we are, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but maybe it comes all natural like to you. It don't to me, you see?"

She thought about it, then. Examining him and the way he was. "I don't expect so, no," she said, mournfully. "It wasn't altogether natural and easy for her, either."

"For _me,_" he corrected insistently.

There was a frozen silence after that. She used the pronoun when she wanted to escape from herself, when being in too close was hard, when it bit too much. When she was feeling and experiencing too much. When she needed a filter, somehow, anyhow.

She knew that Simon didn't like it, felt like she was taking a step backwards into psychosis. But Jayne didn't hear a step into psychosis. That wasn't what felt familiar and right.

He heard his step-dad telling him he was a thing, he wasn't a real person. He heard her saying that she was just a shadow. That real people would never be like she was just now.

He heard her stop being herself, and he wanted her to know that it was all right to be herself.

"When'd you start being all Zoe to my Cap'n?" she asked, amused.

He shrugged. "Thought you were Zoe, an` I was the Cap'n. I make all the gorram bad decisions, and you pull my rutting hide out of the fire often enough."

She smiled, because the relationship swung both ways, anyway. As often as Zoe was there for the Cap'n, he was there for her. The two of them were linked by bonds like titanium. More than linked River and Jayne, for certain.

"I wouldn't leave if I had to leave all of you behind," she said solemnly. "You and Simon and the Cap'n and even Zoe. And Kaylee."

He chuckled. "Gonna drag us all into a war?"

"Cap'n wanted to do it. Nearly did it. He's going to untangle it, but if they start winning… if Blood and Liam manage to actually begin a revolution the cuts the head of state off and begins to change intergalactic politics… oh, he'll do it in a heartbeat."

Jayne grunted. "Heads roll, and he'll put his on the block? I didn't sign up for that."

"But you'll play hero. You know you will."

5.

Mal leaned his head against the cold metal of the bulkhead, trying to keep his head clear. "Are you telling me…"

Liam shrugged. "I'm telling you what she said, no more. We tried to dissuade her, but if you want to keep her, you should talk to her."

"Why're you telling me this?"

"Because I don't want her along. We've been cutting corners a lot lately, doing insane things… coming close to death. You know what kind of monsters we are. We can do that. Her? She'd be torn to shreds. I've seen William survive having his hands cuts off! I've seen things you can't imagine. I've been impaled on swords. I've been shot. That's the risks we take, the life we lead. And any one of those would finish her. That's why we do this; why we have to do this. Nobody else can do this. Nobody else could survive being shoved out an airlock."

"Wait, you can…?"

"Of course. Don't need to breath. As long as I avoid explosive decompression, should be fine. You see? Monsters."

6.

She knew Mal wanted to talk to her, make her stay. So she waited for him on the bridge, knowing he'd look there first.

He stood at the back of the cockpit for a minute, just staring. She could feel sadness in those eyes, and even a telepath doesn't always know what to say. She knew what he wanted to hear, but it was a lie. She knew what she wanted to say, but it would have hurt him so bad.

So she compromised.

"You wanted to fight, remember?"

He laughs. "Oh, yes, li'l albatross, I remember."

"For him, I would fight, if he would let me. But he makes everything so complicated."

He thought of Inara. "Yeah, complicated," he sighed, coming over and sitting in the co-pilot's seat. "Are you gonna stay, then?"

"This time." She looked at him a bit sadly. "She would leave, if he'd take her with him. And maybe someday she'll just go looking for him."

"You hardly know him."

"I know that I want to know more. I want to know who first hurt him so badly that he's so scared of love. I want to know why there's praise and scorn on his face when I hurt him. I want to know everything that I can't pick out of his mind. I want to know why he fights so hard, loves so intensely. I want it all."

Mal let out a harsh breath. "Yeah…"

"She doesn't plan to just forget him, either. She knows your mind… you're going looking for a smaller bit of this fight. You're listening, to hear if they could win. You want them to win, you're just scared to help them too closely, because they will burn up their allies with their enemies. She knows that there'll be other fights, and you'll need her too."

He chuckled nervously. "I hadn't finished thinking about that."

"But you will, and that's the way it is." She felt sad and old. Much the way he felt most of the time. "We aren't like them. They live for this fight. It's all they'll do. We're not heroes like them… but we have our own little world to defend."

"Yes, we do," said Mal fervently.

"Right now it overlaps. You and me and Serenity. Someday it won't, and that's sad. But it's not today. Okay?"

He nodded. "Little girls grow up and leave their daddy's all the time," he said, smiling. "You aren't really my kin, but you needed something like a daddy… and I did what I could."

"You were all you could be," she said seriously. "Nurture, love, protection."

He got up and made his way over to her side slowly and awkwardly, not quite sure how to go about it. She had no such reservations, springing up and hugging him fiercely. "Thank you," she said.

He nodded, patting her on the head. His voice was more happy than sad when he spoke. "No matter what happens, when or if you decide to leave, there'll always be a home for you on Serenity. Always."


	10. Chapter 10

The Resistance

Firefly Crossover

Summary: Follows my other fic, Spinning In The Dark. Posits a large conspiracy against mankind, the lampshading of demons and other monsters into the series, and ignores shared actors between the shows (as that would just be squicky). Spinning In The Dark gives away the twist.

Chapter 10

1.

The night before they reached their destination he said goodbye to her alone, in her room. It was a quiet, subdued goodbye.

He held her in his arms and said it, and she could feel the goodbye cutting into her. It was the worst goodbye she'd ever heard, and it was worse than anything the Alliance doctors had ever done to her.

He touched her face with one hand, the pads of those long fingers seeking some absolution from her. "I'm just a thing that lived too long," he said. "An old man who bought, borrowed, begged and stole his way into too many lifetimes of pain."

As always, she couldn't probe into his mind. All she gets are the little bits on the outside, the bits radiating out. The anger, the hostility. But underneath that is a pure current of affection.

She wasn't sure if perhaps Jayne was right. Was this just infatuation? Just sex? Or is there really love in here, mixed up with everything else? She isn't sure if she's being an adult or if she's being just a kid, here.

She smiles at him. "This war can't last forever."

"There's always something," he said. "A war. A mission. A calling. Duty. I don't know…"

"Will you come back?" she asked plaintively.

He smiled tentatively. "Yeah. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I'll be back."

She sighs, and nestles closer to him. "Good."

2.

As they walked off the gangplank, away from _Serenity_, their injured crew strung out and limping behind them, Liam glanced down at Blood, a question in his eyes.

"Heart and soul, I'm hers, if she'll wait for me," said Blood calmly.

"What about the big monkey? You must have noticed he was moving in," replied Liam.

Blood shrugged. "If she won't wait, she won't wait. I can't make a woman be more or less true to me by wishing it. She made no promises, and I didn't ask for any."

"Our war doesn't wait."

"Our war won't last forever. Someday I'll be coming back to this ship. Someday I'll be free from our war."

Liam laughed. "There's no freedom."

Blood sighed. "Aren't you a decade overdue for an epiphany that gives you new strength to fight this battle?" he asked waspishly. "Come on. Let's go kill your doppelganger, topple an empire, free the galaxy… ohh, can we blow up the death star?"

Liam chuckled. "No, Spike, I am your father!"

"Gah!"

3.

Jayne knew the moonbrained little girl would be sad for a while. He wasn't sure if in his new role as her friend he was supposed to offer her some consolation in the form of telling her she was too good for the monster, or if he was supposed to ignore her and pretend it was all right.

He considered taking his cues here from Kaylee, but she was still more than a little squicked by the vampire, so she was probably not the best lead to follow. But better than Mal, who was cheerful to have no more real monsters on board. Or Zoe, who was stoic. Or Inara, who was also cheerful. Simon had taken cheerful to new heights.

Each of them had their own reasons. Simon's were the worst, as he was just glad that his sister's lover was gone.

But, then, he was just trying to protect River. So Jayne cut him some slack.

So he ended up playing cards with her in the hold. It turned out she knew some of the games he had played back home, and figuring out the rules of the ones she didn't know. Better, she could remember only half-remembered rules that fluttered at the back of his mind.

He didn't want to talk about the deeper things. He wanted to forget, like everybody else. He was only human, after all. But something in the way she sat made him need to dig at it, to open those wounds. To try to make it better.

"Doing okay?" he asked, regretting the turn of phrase.

She shrugged. "He cut below me, into my blood, and found the parts even she…even I couldn't find. And he was a mystery to me. I could see in his eyes but not hear in his head, except those most obvious things, and I wanted answers that couldn't be given."

He waited a beat after she stopped talking. "I don't know what that means."

"Neither do I."

He thought about that for a while. "You always say stuff you don't know what it means?"

"I understand the constituent pieces, and they're all truthful. But the complete picture is reality, and that's a canvas I have no control over."

He grunted. "That I do understand."

There was a long silence between the. Finally she tossed her cards down. "You've won," she sighed. "Your hand beats me in all possible permutations."

He grumbled, not liking the game to be predetermined. She, of course, couldn't see the point of playing out a hand she already knew the outcome of. "Gorramit," he grumbled, gathering the cards to deal them out again. "Can you see the future?" he asked, something he'd always wanted to ask, but always been afraid too.

She gave him a coy look. "She sees worlds of quantum possibilities before her eyelids, but none of them are any more likely than the other, and they fall and collapse so randomly."

He scowled at her. "I mean, the future."

She smiled, that knowing smile she had perfected. "She can't."

"Oh."

"But she knows what she would like the future to be. Forever here, on _Serenity._ Forever fighting. Forever with her monstrous love. Instead… she won't stay here forever, you know."

He made a face, thinking dark thoughts of guns and tying her up to keep her from running away. "He'll be back. Men like him, they always come back. Whether you like it or not."

She sighed. "I hope so."

4.

Eva stayed on board _Serenity _for another month. In that time she refused to explain any of her plans to any of the crew.

When she finally found a destination port and left, she did so without telling any of them where she was going or why. They were relieved to see her go, and take her prisoner with her.

5.

The first report they heard was on Unification Day, of all days. Mal had found a bar and was looking to pick a fight, but nobody was up to it today. They were all demoralized and scared.

He stared at the screen for a long minute, not even hearing the words that went with the images. It was hard to imagine a Core world being burned up, even harder to imagine somebody taking down half the Alliance military leadership.

But he knew who had done it without even having to think very hard about it.

He glanced to Zoe, who had a quizzical look on her face. "Did you think they could?" he asked her.

She gave him a dry look. "Did you think they couldn't?"

6.

The job was a simple snatch and grab. It turned sour nearly halfway in, and Jayne found himself dangling on the end of a long rope over a canyon that was deeper than his rope was long.

He clutched the tiny rope, trying not to look down. It was wrapped around his chest three times, and it kept digging deeper. He was sweating like a stuck pig, and kept trying to get a grip on the cliff wall with his boots, but it was too sheer, too much smooth rock.

River dangled from her rope several feet away from him, but she appeared to be having fun. She was grinning widely, and swinging and swaying on the end of the rope like a yo-yo.

He snarled at her. "Gorram it, girl, can't you do something?"

"Stop being afraid; the fall can't kill, only the landing," she said glibly, which didn't help his fear at all.

"Help me!" he snapped.

She sighed. "The rope's length is terribly less than I would need; and even if I had the length, and besides that, isn't it like a day at the carnival? Or a green field, waiting for daddy to give you a push, make you fly?"

"I ain't yet mastered the rudimentaries of flight!" he snarled.

"Flight is falling with the rug yanked out from under the bottom. If you aren't falling, you don't need to fly. If you aren't bound by gravity, ropes don't pull so tight. Silly!"

He wanted to swear. He wanted to swing himself over to her, take hold of her, and let her save him. He wanted to save her.

He was pretty sure he also wanted to kill her.

So he stopped trying to quantify it, just trying to get a better grip on the rock wall of doom. "What if they don't come down here to fetch us?"

She smiled indulgently. "Cap'n always gets his man. Even when it isn't a man, properly. Especially then. I suppose I have less to worry about than the Jayne-beast dangling on his leash."

He grunted. "I guess I just don't trust him that much."

She made a mock pout in his general direction, still swinging as if she didn't have a care in the world. "And him never having dropped you."

He searched his brain for a distraction. "Do you think your monster-boy will come back now that he's done with his blowing stuff up?" he blurted out desperately. He didn't want to think of Mal, and falling, and being saved. That way laid the trap of all the things he was coming to owe Mal, and the ever-growing camaraderie between them. That way lay friendship and a host of other things Jayne was trying to avoid thinking about.

She laughed, a surprisingly normal laugh that sounded a bit fake. "Oh, the man they call Jayne. More afraid of the captain's smiles than the death he carries at his fingertips. William, dear, mysterious William, will come back, I'm sure of that. I don't know when, and I don't know what he'll do then. I don't know if I'll be young or old. Uncertainty kills, man with a girl's name."

He struggled to get a little slack in the line. "Can't you climb up to the top?"

"Where those who tried to kill us will be waiting? No."

He heaved a sigh. "He give you an address for contactin` him?"

"I gave him ours, and he assured me he would leave a unique package there for me at least once. I suppose I could leave a letter there, in hopes he drops off that package himself…"

Jayne grunted. "Fool monster-boy."

7.

Silent and stealthy, Mal reminded himself. Silent and stealthy.

He ducked his head out.

The bounty hunters were still in the door of the ship. Neither of them had given chase to River and Jayne, or tried to cut the rope anchoring them.

Which made about as much sense as the way they'd come walking up here.

Kaylee stood between the two of them, stonewalling.

They had come in with guns drawn, but they hadn't tried to kill anybody until Jayne had gone for his gun. And Mal was fairly certain they'd shot wide, or else his big mercenary would be dead. They were good, whoever they were.

Too good. That kind of skill cost money.

And he had an idea they weren't here for River, or for anybody else on the crew.

8.

Kaylee wondered where Simon was. Probably halfway to town, along with twenty other people, in that terrible bus she hadn't trusted one gorram bit.

He'd invited her to come along, but, no, of course not. The engines needed work. The engines always needed work! Next time he was going shopping and invited her along, she was going to take the opportunity. She was not going to waste it.

She could be laughing at some lame joke with him right now, instead of standing here with these two very dangerous-looking people.

One was a tall man, with slanted eyes and reddish skin. He smiled a lot, but his eyes were cold and dead. She didn't like him much.

The other was a very cold-looking woman with blonde hair. She looked familiar, though Kaylee was having trouble placing her.

There was something going on between the two of them. Some kind of struggle of wills. Kaylee knew her best chance of getting out of here alive was to exploit it, but she was a little distracted just now.

The blonde woman sighed. "We came here for information, not a fight."

The tall man smiled. "We can get both."

"You know he'll be mad."

"Let him be mad. We got a lead here, eh?"

Kaylee swallowed, looking around. No sign of the Captain nearby, nor Zoe. And if her favorite mercenary and scary-crazy girl were to pop back up now, she was fairly certain they'd be killed.

"I'm calling him," said the woman. "Let him know we found what he was looking for."

"It's the barest trace!" protested the man. "Let me just torture this one, please? She'll tell me right where they left them, right where we can pick up the trail!"

Kaylee licked her lips, wondering how far away the captain was. How long it would take for him to get here.

It was Inara who came to her rescue, oddly, walking out of the ship briskly, as if she hadn't heard the shots earlier. "Is the captain back yet, Kaylee?" she asked, fluttering her fan serenely.

The tall man smiled wickedly, biting his lower lip. "Oh, what have we here?" he breathed softly.

The blonde woman shook her head. "You keep your wits together! He'll be here shortly, and we don't need any slip-ups at this point!"

The tall man shook his head. "He ain't gonna be here for another day or two. I have time. I have plenty of time. Hey, sweetie."

The blonde swiveled, pointing her gun at her companion. "You just back down, gorram it! We are not having any more incidents!"

He pouted. "You hurt one hooker one time on some godforsaken wasteland planet…."

She fired, shooting him point-blank in the chest. He howled, falling to the ground. The wound, however, wasn't bloody. Kaylee tried backing away, but the woman turned, aiming her gun at Kaylee and Inara. "Don't try it!" she snarled. "Brock, get up. Next time, we're going to kill you, you know that, right? You're too gorram dangerous!"

He struggled to his feet, breathing heavily. "You rutting shot me!"

"I'll do it again if you look funny at either girl!" snarled the blonde woman. "Maybe you missed the memo; you're not supposed to be the bad guy, here!"

He shot her. Unlike him, the wound was bloody, spattering blood all over Kaylee. She shrieked, trying to scramble backwards out of the blood. The blonde woman's corpse fell to the floor.

Brock was smirking. "I wondered how much faster than you I was. I did wonder. Now we know. You're just a punk, a poser. Some lady with a gun you think you can use. Sorry, but this job really only needed one man anyway."

That was when the Captain and Zoe advanced. Kaylee dove down as they started firing, but Inara didn't. She lunged forward, throwing a knife at his head.

It bounced off.

The hail of bullets had no effect on him, besides making him stagger few feet back. "Oh, come on!" he snarled, aiming his gun out at Mal and Zoe. Seeing that, they both dove, continuing to fire until they were both out of ammunition.

He waited a beat, then carefully fired. It hit Mal in the shoulder, and he let out a yelp, dropping his gun.

Brock sighed, aiming at Zoe. "I do hate to hurt a lady," he said, his voice oozing insincerity.

There was another gunshot, this one from the fallen blonde lady. The bullet again knocked him cleanly off his feet, and he roared in pain as he went down.

Kaylee had landed right beside what she had thought of as a corpse; only now it was moving, squinting through the blood flowing from the head-wound. "Gorramit, Brock! I don't have a lot of patience left for you. I will kill you—and I know how!"

He sniffed archly, holding his gun up in the air. "Sorry I shot you."

She rose jerkily to her feet. "There's fair and there's foul. Gorram! You are a foul son of a whore, Brock!"

Kaylee knew there were good things, and bad things. Having enemies that could withstand a hail of bullets?

Bad thing.

Also, considering that Liam and Blood had both apparently had that ability, and had been on their ship not so long ago?

Definitely more than coincidence.

9.

River continued taunting Jayne quietly while they dangled at the end of their line, wondering how long it would take the captain to realize what she already knew.

These attackers weren't really human. They weren't Reavers, and they weren't monsters like Blood, but they were definitely not ordinary. Their thoughts were almost closed to her, who could read anybody, and she knew that she had shot the big man right in the left kidney before falling off the edge.

He hadn't even flinched, and his thoughts had barely registered any pain.

They were monsters made by whatever organization Blood and Liam were trying to take down. Monsters whose intention was to track down those two and stop the mayhem they were unleashing upon a universe.

She'd been content to sit and wait forever for Blood to decide if he could come back to her, if there was a place in his world for her.

But if somebody needed to rescue Blood, if he was being chased by assassins…

Well, she was willing to play White Knight to his Damsel in Distress. Any day.


End file.
